


Far From Heaven

by yusahana6323



Category: the GazettE
Genre: AU, Angels, Demons, Dialogue Heavy, Explicit Language, Fallen Angels, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-04-11 03:24:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 32,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4419365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yusahana6323/pseuds/yusahana6323
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fallen from grace, even all hell has to offer can't ease Reita's suffering and longing to return to heaven... and the cause of his damnation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

    "Are you scrying?"

    "Shut up," Reita muttered, not taking his gaze from the mirror pool.

    "There has to be something better you can do."

    The blonde ignored his speaking friend, staying fixated on the form he saw in the clear, cool liquid. It was interrupted, though, when a hand slapped the surface, breaking the image and splashing him.

    "Jackass!" Reita hissed, jumping a bit, wings rustling behind him in surprise and agitation. The black-haired one across from him tsked, wiping his hand dry on his clothes.

    "You'll die if you keep pining away like that."

    "I can't help it." His heart was heavy as he said it, and he turned his amber gaze back to the rippling water as if hoping the image would come back. "I've tried."

    A pause, and then Aoi's voice was gentler. "I know you have, but you haven't tried to replace it with anything else."

    "I can't." With a sigh, Reita stood, folding his inky wings down his back. "There's no way for me to do it."

    "You'd be surprised what you can do if you try." Aoi shrugged, folding his arms as his wings stretched lazily. "I hardly care anymore."

    "Well, you've got your distraction. I don't have one."

    "You don't let yourself have one. There's plenty of diversion here. It's not so bad if you'd just let him go."

    Reita shook his head. "We have this conversation almost every day. I wish you'd just leave me be."

    "I'm your friend and I worry." Aoi offered him a small smile. "I have to at least try."

    "Thank you."

    "Let's go now, we have work to do."

    Reita followed his friend, mind still lingering on what he'd been watching in his scrying pool. His heart would always be stuck there, in the faraway place he could only just watch. But he supposed that was his punishment, and understandably so. God's angels weren't allowed the sort of things he longed for.

    His troops saluted him when he entered their training hall, and he dismissed them, going to his stand to supervise their activities. It was a bit easier to bear his cross here, with people he was charged with. They took his attention, even if he didn't engage much. More than he probably was supposed to, he cared for these soldiers, who were loyal to him and the cause they fought for. Though the Great War had passed, they still needed their defence. They needed to be ready to protect or attack, whichever was necessary. Even if it weren't so, better to train and work than to laze and let their minds go back to what had happened before.

    Even with his work, Reita was caught in it. But that was what he was damned to, decreed so or not.

    When he had dismissed his section and watched every feathery or leathery wing disappear, he let himself descend and train himself, trying to fasten his mind onto anything but what held him hostage. He threw all his strength into the punches and kicks that hit nothing but thin air, into slicing and stabbing at an invisible enemy, part of him hoping that maybe if he went hard enough, he'd sweat out the feelings.

    "Don't hurt yourself."

    The familiar playful voice made him stop, but he didn't turn around as he tried to regain his breathing. He felt slender hands run up his bare, sweat-slicked back, rubbing between the bases of his wings.

    "There are better ways to get that frustration out."

    "It doesn't make it stop," Reita replied, straightening up and sweeping a hand back through his damp hair.

    "No, but it helps." The hands slid around to his chest now, caressing his pectorals and down his ribs to his stomach. He felt a cool cheek press into his back now, and he sighed in a bit of exasperation. The response was, "Don't do that to me."

    "You aren't what I want, Ruki."

    "I know. But you're my friend. Aoi and I can at least help."

    Reita turned and looked down at the tiny demon, whose head barely reached the top of his chest. Ruki smiled, his bright blue eyes flaring, as he ran his tongue over his full lips, sharp tips of his teeth peeking out.

    "Come to bed."

    "One day Aoi will snap my neck for doing as you tell me."

    "I doubt it. We both enjoy when you come to play." Ruki took his hand and pulled lightly, swaying his slim hips a bit. "Come on."

    Knowing it was useless to try to argue, and needing a release anyhow, Reita quietly let the demon lead him away, back home, and to the best physical distraction he had here in hell. Physical was the main point of it, because his mind was elsewhere, twisting his own desires, so he heard something other than Ruki, felt something other than the demon. It was his time to torture himself and pretend it was what he wanted, because it was the closest he would ever get.

    "I wish you'd show your face when you fuck me," Ruki complained as he lay back when they finished. Reita simply sat up, turning his back, and leaning forward to press his head into his hands. He felt the light touch on his lower back, soothingly stroking him. "I mean, I'm only trying to help."

    "I know you are," Reita sighed. He heard a sudden, surprised laugh from Ruki and a low murmur of Aoi's voice, so he stayed facing away and closed his eyes, imagining something else. "I'm just not comfortable yet."

    "You need to start being comfortable with it, Rei," Aoi said now. "You're never going back. It's been a long time that you've been here. Let it go. There's plenty to enjoy here."

    "Not when the most important thing is up there, still."

    "You made that choice."

    "If you were in my place, would you have dragged it down with you?"

    "Absolutely."

    Reita stiffened.

    "You're such a romantic, Reita."

    Slowly, the blonde turned now and saw Ruki lazily lying back, and Aoi running his lips in caressing kisses down the demon's shoulder and back, tracing the pale trail that marred the skin. Reaching the end, Aoi looked up at him with black eyes, expression frank as the voice he spoke with.

    "If I wanted it badly enough, I'd just bring it with me no matter what."

    Reita shook his head. "I couldn't."

    "That's why I say you're a romantic. You'd rather suffer the doubt than have it absolute. That's what you think love is."

    He didn't want to listen to this, though he knew his friend was probably right. He stood, pulling his clothes back on, trying to keep his pitch-black wings from ruffling in irritation.

    "Where are you going?" Ruki asked, his expression surprised, as Reita buckled his sheath around his waist.

    "Out."

    "We were going to go again."

    "Go ahead. I'm good."

    "Reita -"

    Finishing, he ignored their voices and left the mansion, half-slamming the doors behind himself as he went. His head was pounding with Aoi's words. He knew he shouldn't be upset. Aoi was just that kind of person - he would take and control whatever he wanted, and he was loved for it. Hell, it was how he'd gotten Ruki, who was so headstrong and independent, to be his consort. But Reita wasn't like that. He couldn't force that on someone, just to please himself. Especially not someone or something that meant so much to him.

    That was why he was so pathetic, just dreaming and lusting and catching what glimpses he could through scrying. Because he didn't have the presence to make others love him when he forced them to their knees.

    It was night and it was surprisingly cold, the full moon lighting the indigo sky as if it were almost daytime. Reita spread his wings and took off, not paying any attention to the direction he was going. He didn't think when he flew. His mind was peacefully blank as he soared through the starry sky, unnoticed with his wings blacker than the night was. He had made them that way after all. He might as well enjoy how they blended into the darkness he was damned to.

    He took a few minutes to get his thoughts back to himself when he landed. When he realised where he was, he laughed bitterly at himself.

    "Of course I come here."

    Reita stepped slowly to the ruins of the abbey, hesitated, but then stretched out his hand and laid it softly against the cold, damp stone. Memories rushed into him, vivid and vibrant as if they were new, and he had to take a deep breath and close his eyes to try to contain them.

    "It's been so long,” he murmured to no one. “So, so long…”

    His hands clenched on their own, as if to keep hold on his thoughts and emotions, as he walked in. Even disfigured and scarred as it was now, he could still see the abbey as if it were brand new, when the walls would gleam white in the silver light of the moon that would pour through the high, wide windows. Reita paused as he reached the inside, staring down the nave retaken by grass, weeds, and flowers, where toppled columns and chunks of stone from the vanished rooftops marred the thick green carpet of flora. Dewdrops resting on leaves and blades of grass glistened like diamonds. He caught his breath. It was in ruins, but somehow seemed just as holy in this quiet way.

    "Still as beautiful as ever." He ran his hand along the column as the whisper left his lips, closed his eyes and taking a deep breath of the crisp air. He didn't realise how smoggy and heavy the air in hell was until he poked his head up here every now and then. "Still as healing."

    For all that had happened to this place, there was only one thing that was truly missing. An angel, with beautiful, soft white wings, purer and more lovely than a swan's, standing in the light. An angel that all heaven was surely envious of. An angel that was Reita's missing part, not just of his pride of statement, but because it was made so. He felt his fingers clench a bit on the stone column. That angel was what held him unmoving. That angel was -

    "Who’s there?"

    He whirled, hand on his sword, wings raised to fight. But what his eyes fell on, despite being what he wanted to see more than anything, was also what he simultaneously prayed not to see.

_That_ angel.

    Widened chocolate-brown eyes stared at him, luminous in the white light. Reita backed away, seeing the slender hands, like his, clenched into fists hovering over their sword, and readied himself for a fight that he sorely didn't want.

    "Who are you?" the angel demanded, eyes narrowing a bit now.

    Even an angry expression was a lovely one on that face, and it made his heart beat painfully. He tried to get hold of himself. He needed to fly away. He needed to leave. But, like being in this place, it had been so, so long since he had stood before this person! His feet were heavy, and so were his wings. His whole body wanted nothing more than to stay right here. He didn't reply, because he didn't think he could, so they just stared at each other. The other's eyes locked into his, and there was a tense moment, but then realization and surprise lit the beautiful face.

    "Reita?"

    Reita's hand tightened on his sword, just in case. He still didn't speak. Surprise faded into joy, and a broad smile stretched those full lips that he had been desperately dreaming of.

    "Reita, it is you. You're hiding your face, but I know your eyes. I know them. God... it's been eternity...!"

    He didn't move.

    "Do... do you remember me?" He seemed unnerved that Reita hadn't responded. "It's Uruha."

    Against his better judgement, slowly Reita let go of his sword and replied quietly, "Yes, I remember you."

    The joyous expression returned. "I knew you would. You had to."

    "Why are you talking to me, Uruha?" It hurt to be so cold, but he had no choice. It couldn't be like it had been so many years before. Like this abbey, the world was shattered, and they were in different planes of existence. If nothing else, the colours of their wings showed that.

    "Why...? Because you're Reita. You're my friend." His tone was confused now, and he was biting his lip nervously.

    "Wrong. I'm not your friend. Not anymore. I haven't been for a long time."

    Uruha looked absolutely dumbfounded. It gave Reita a moment to look over him. He looked like he was in good health, his body was strong, just as slim and lean and curved in just the right places as it had been before. He only looked a bit older, but it had been awhile... and age didn't touch the celestial beauty he was.

    "What?" Reita asked, keeping his voice even and sarcastic, even as much as it hurt him. "Did you think we'd still be pals after everything? After my torture and exile, after the war, after years of being apart? You thought we could just pick up like nothing happened?"

    "No, I didn't think that. I just didn't think that you'd... abandon me."

    Good hell... he was the same as ever. The knife in Reita's heart twisted.

    "Your eyes... I said I know them," Uruha continued. "I do. But they're so different. They're cold and fierce now. I expected that. You have to be different. But you didn't stop caring about me, I won't believe you have."

    No, he hadn't stopped caring. It was so far the opposite. Reita snorted, his wings rustling a bit, and kept silent.

    "You haven't. That isn't you." The determination was back in Uruha’s face now, and he folded his arms stubbornly. "No matter what, you wouldn't stop caring for those you love."

    Reita laughed, because it hurt how true it still was. It hurt so much it was funny. Uruha stared as he laughed and leaned against a pillar, scrambling to get himself together. Hell, he cared so much! He wanted to scream it.

    "Is that what you think?" he asked when he managed to get his facade back together. "You think after everything I went through, I'd still be a tender little chick like you?"

    "No, but -"

    "A favourite indeed. You've been spoiled and coddled. You always were." He had to break their bonds. He had to leave. He couldn't see Uruha again. Better to break him and make him hate Reita than to let him be himself. "I've always hated that about you. You were always the favourite!"

    "Reita, don't say things like that!"

    Uruha grabbed at him, and Reita leapt backwards, away from his touch, beating his wings against the air to carry him across the way. His friend tried to follow, but when Reita drew his sword, he fell back, and they landed at maybe five paces' distance. Those dark eyes were shining, his cheeks flushed with frustration and passion. Even like this, he was gorgeous. Reita could feel his wings somehow turn darker at that thought.

    "Let me help you. You're my best friend, you're my other half. You still feel that too, I know you do!"

    "Help me?" Reita barked, and Uruha jumped at the sound of his voice. "Like you can!"

    "I can try. Please, there has to be something I can do."

    "Careful what you say, Uruha. I hear they're looking for traitors to the throne. Not that I give a fuck if they tear you apart and rape you for treason."

    Uruha quivered, his eyes getting very wide. "They don't do that."

    "You're such a child." Reita sheathed his sword, glaring as best he could. His heart was breaking. It took everything he had to keep himself this far, and it was too close. "Let me give you a tip. If you ever see me again, turn around and run far away. I don't want to see you. I don't want to hear your voice. I don't even want to think about you ever again."

    "Reita! What's happened to you?"

    "You fucking idiot. Go back to your pearly mansion and bed of clouds. You don't know a goddamn thing, so stop pretending like you know anything about me."

    "What's happened to you?" Uruha repeated, his voice almost whimpering. "I don't understand."

    "Go home, Uruha. Stay there. You don't understand, not a thing, and it's better that way. Go home, chickadee. Go back to your ignorance and your hymns. Never see me again."

    Uruha lunged for him, but he jumped away again and flew as fast as he could, restraining his tears until he could no longer hear Uruha’s voice or sense his presence. The ache in his heart from seeing Uruha and hearing just how much the other angel had missed him might end up killing him. He wished he'd never known.

    "Reita!"

    He landed hard back at their home and almost immediately fell into his friend's arms, not trying to keep his strength up.

    "Shit, Reita, what's happened?"

    "I saw him..."

    Aoi's arms tightened around him. "What?"

    "I went to the abbey. I wasn't even thinking about it. And he was there."

    "Fuck... come inside."

    Reita sank down onto the sofa Aoi pushed him towards, and his friend drew up a chair to sit in front of him. He couldn't look at the darker angel in the face, so he turned his head.

    "Don't,” he whispered.

    "You're crying, Reita. I haven't seen you do that in hundreds of years."

    "I know. I'm useless."

    "What happened? What did he say?"

    "He hasn't changed. Not one bit. He was happy to see me. I'm still his friend. I'm his best friend. Why wouldn't I talk to him? I have to still care about him. I should let him help me. They'd let me back in. They'd never hurt me."

    Aoi sighed, rubbing one of his temples. "That does sound like him."

    "I didn't want to see him."

    "Yes you did."

    "No." He did. Reita wanted to fly straight back. Though it hurt like hell, seeing Uruha was what he had wanted all this time. All the years, thinking back on all the memories, all the scrying and dreaming and wishing...

    "What did you do?"

    "Told him to go home and never come back."

    "That's all you can do."

    "It would be easier if he could just hate me."

    "Would it be?"

    "So much easier."

    Aoi watched him quietly for a few minutes before he said, "You're shaking."

    "I've missed him."

    "What did you want to do to him?"

    Anything. Everything. Reita chose not to say it.

    "Don't go back again. You shouldn't have said anything to him. You should have just left."

    "I know."

    Another pause, and then Aoi pulled him into a tight hug. Reita clung to him, feeling pathetic, his body aching with all the memories and feelings. He didn't think his heart could hurt this much.

    "I feel like you're the only one left who's suffering." Aoi’s voice was almost resigned, like he was so tired from having to bear watching Reita. In fact, it very well could be just that.

    "I know I'm not."

    "But I feel like it. I wish they had just killed him."

    Reita laughed tiredly. "And end my suffering? It's my punishment."

    "If you keep hurting like this, I will do it."

    "Then I'll hate you."

    "It would be worth it to not have to watch you deal with it anymore."

    "You shouldn't say such things. You'll get in trouble."

    "I don't think I will." Aoi rubbed his back, and Reita realised his wings were hurting like hell. He hissed into his friend's shoulder and let Aoi massage it away. "All you did was fall in love."

    "It's heresy."

    "That's all you did."

    He knew it. Reita heavily closed his eyes, letting Aoi comfort him.

    "I only wish you could have it," the darker angel told him. "I wish you could be happy."

     "Are you happy, with Ruki?"

    "Very."

    "Are you in love with him?"

    "I'm getting to be very in love with him, yes."

    "Aww, thanks baby," crooned Ruki's voice from out of nowhere.

    "You're welcome." Reita felt Aoi lift his head, and he heard a soft kiss. "But if you leave me or cheat on me I'll murder you, you slut of a bitch."

    "I know you will." Ruki's tone was amused. Then it softened as he said, "Do you need anything, Reita?"

    "Uruha." He said it bitterly. It was all he needed to make this end.

    "I'll drag him down here if you want me to. You know I will."

    "No." Slowly Reita sat up, rubbing his eyes. Ruki was leaning over Aoi, his hands resting on the fallen angel's shoulders. Reita tried to avoid both their gazes. "Just leave him be."

    "Why don't you just drag him down?" Ruki asked, tilting his head a bit. "I mean, just hold him down and stick it in and they'll have to throw him out, won't they?"

    "I can't do that to him."

    "Why not?"

    "I couldn't force him into anything like that. And he doesn't deserve to suffer because of how I feel. He hasn't done anything wrong."

    "He cares about you."

    "Not enough to go through a fall. You should have seen the look on his face when I even suggested it. He doesn't understand. He doesn't deserve to go through that just because I want him. Besides... he'll never feel the same way. That's why he's still up there and I'm down here."

    Aoi's expression was sympathetic, and Reita hated it. He didn't want pity. He just wanted to stop hurting.

    "If he loved me,” he continued, “they would have cut him away too. So it isn't worth it. Even if he did...” He faltered for a moment. _What if_ Uruha did love him? He mentally shook himself. “I still couldn't do that to him. I don't want to make him suffer."

    "He's suffering now, though," Ruki replied quietly. "If what you say is true."

    Reita didn't know what to say to that. He turned away, rubbing his eyes on his palm.

    "I'm such a fuckup."

    "You're not."

    "I wish I could just let it go, you don't even know how much I wish I could."

    He felt Ruki's small, smooth, cool hands take his face, and turn it back to that topaz-blue gaze. He stared into it tiredly, just wanting a rest. He hurt. He was suffering. He wanted his Uruha back. He wanted to go back to when they were young, when they could play together in heaven's gardens and be close. He wanted his love to still be innocent and free of consequence.

    "I love him," he whispered to no one.

    Ruki's expression changed a bit, and gently, he pulled the wrap down, baring Reita's face. He pressed his red lips to the mark seared black under his left eye. Reita quivered at the gentle touch, sorely needing affection and tenderness. Even from a demon, even from the one he didn’t want, he needed it.

    "We know you do," Ruki murmured. "We know."


	2. Chapter 2

    "Where are you going?"

    Uruha stopped, turning around to see Kai approaching him. He sighed a bit in exasperation, but put on a friendly, innocent smile for the other angel as he replied, "Just out. I like flying in the stars."

    "Any stops on your way?" the shorter, but much more muscular, angel asked, cocking an eyebrow.

    "Maybe."

    "Because I know you've been going to the abbey a lot lately."

    "Abbey? Probably."

    "Uruha."

    Kai’s tone was warning, tipping Uruha to not play with him. Sighing again, Uruha asked, "What of it, Kai?"

    "Why so often, so suddenly? I know you used to go every now and then, but it seems you're there every night now."

    The taller angel fidgeted, looking away. Kai was his friend, and he knew that Kai was just looking out for him, but it wasn't something he wanted to discuss. Or probably should even discuss. He was more than aware of what the response would be.

    "Uruha,” Kai repeated, tone dropping further into admonition.

    "I saw Reita there, not long ago,” Uruha muttered, hating to say it but knowing that if he didn’t, Kai would never let him take another step.

    "Reita?"

    "Yeah." Uruha could still remember it vividly – the sight his old friend, lean and strong, hidden all in black save for that blonde hair and the burning amber eyes. He shivered a bit when the memory played again, though that same memory had been almost the only thing in his head, occupying him all day and keeping him up at night. Reita might be a fallen angel, but he was still magnificent enough to strike so much awe into Uruha. Hoping these thoughts didn’t reflect in his voice, he added, "It's been so long since I last saw him.”

    "And you keep going back hoping to run into him again?"

    He nodded, still not looking Kai’s way. He heard a groan and could plainly picture in his mind what his friend’s expression was, the eyebrows knitted in exasperation and lips slightly-parted to allow the noise of disapproval.

    "Uruha, you'll get into so much trouble."

    "Why?"

    "Why?” The disbelief in Kai’s voice made Uruha cringe. “Because he's the enemy. He's a fallen angel, a general of hell. That's why. Did you speak to him? You shouldn't have."

    "Of course I did. He's my friend."

    "No he isn't. No he isn't," Kai repeated firmly when Uruha faced him, about to protest. His eyes were set and serious, saying he wouldn’t take an argument. "Have you forgotten how he rebelled and spat in the face of Our Father?"

    "No, I haven't, but -"

    “Have you forgotten how many angels he killed, just on his own?"

    "No -"

    "How he almost killed _you_?"

    "He didn't!"

    His outburst surprised even him. Kai stared, his dark brown eyes now confused and worried.

    "He didn't almost kill me," Uruha said, a bit more calmly. "He knocked me over and told me to stay down. He was trying to protect me, I’m sure of it."

    "As if, Uruha."

    "Think what you want." Why didn't Kai believe him? Uruha felt a tick of anger. Reita had been Kai’s close friend too, and Kai knew how good and gentle Reita had been. Was it so hard to believe that he hadn’t completely turned? No matter what Reita himself said, Uruha wouldn’t believe that his best friend was completely gone. "He could have killed me, but he barely even gave me a scratch."

    "Even so, Uruha, you shouldn't be associating with him in any way."

    "He said they tortured him," Uruha said abruptly, wanting to stop Kai’s lecture.

    His friend certainly stopped, and then asked, "What?"

    "He said that they would torture me, too."

    There was a pause. Something in Kai’s face, in his eyes, chilled Uruha. But it was only there a moment before he snorted and replied, "See? He's full of it. They don't do that to fallen angels. He had a choice, and he chose to sin and rebel. That's his fault, Uruha. Don't you make the same mistake. Don't let him drag you down too."

    Uruha shook his head, still a bit shaken by that flash of a haunted look. "I know you mean well, Kai, but I don't think you understand."

    "I understand very well what he is capable of. Look," Kai added, in a slightly gentler voice, "I know it's been hard for you to lose him. He was your best friend, and we were all hurt when he betrayed us. You've been hurting most of all. And I know you want to forgive him because you believe he's still the same. But he's not, and he'll hurt you, and you should know that."

    Reita's warnings from that night echoed in his head. Uruha just shook his head again, not wanting to argue with Kai or tell him how many times Reita had told him to stay away. He couldn't believe Reita would hurt him, not when he had spoken like that.

    "Uruha, please."

    "Thank you for your concern, Kai. I'll be careful, I promise."

    Kai pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "You're such a brat."

    "I know." Uruha couldn't help but smile. "Sorry, Kai. You know you won't get in trouble or anything."

    "Someday I will."

    The taller angel spread his wings, stretching them in preparation for the flight. They ached, as if they were impatient to return him to that sacred place so he might catch another glimpse of his friend. "I'll tell Reita you miss him too."

    "Don't you say a damn thing to him."

    Laughing a bit, Uruha took off, soaring high into the dark, glittering sky. His heart lifted as he felt the breath of night on his wings and through his hair. Since the war, flying was about the only thing that he enjoyed. He loved his friends dearly, but the losses had been too much for him to bear. It had been awhile since the battles, so now he could smile and talk almost normally. But there was still a huge hole in his life, and the only time he'd felt complete again had been when he had encountered that dark figure in the familiar abbey.

    It was bad, and he knew he shouldn't do it. But he needed Reita, and he knew Reita needed him too.

    He landed softy in the thick grass just outside the abbey and walked in, crossing himself and murmuring a prayer as he entered. Even in ruins, it was a holy place. A quick survey revealed no other living being to him, and he bit back his disappointment. Even if Reita wasn't there personally, this abbey was full of memories, and those eased Uruha's heart at least a bit.

    "Good evening," he murmured to the flowers that were aglow in the moonlight, smiling a bit as they perked at his voice. "You've been growing so well, you don't even need my care."

    He turned his attention to the vines of crawling roses that spilled in from the wide east windows. The buds were heavy with dew, dripping the crystal droplets. As he approached, a couple began to unfurl, making him grin more.

    "You beautiful things, don't bloom if you're not ready, even if I'm here." He stroked the velvety blooms with his very fingertips, taking delight in feeling the life energy in them. "Bloom when you're ready. You're beautiful the way you are."

    A couple had opened, releasing heavier drops of dew. Uruha gazed at them and ruffled his feathers a bit, drinking in the holy light and energy.

    "So beautiful. Just like you've always been. Even when you were just a single sprout in my memories."

    His heart ached as he said it, as he glanced up at the lances of stone that no longer held glass windows. He could remember when this abbey was brand new, when he and Reita, still just children, walked through it in reverence, holding to each other's hands. In the golden light of day, the stone had blazed with colour, and stained glass burned like jewels, but in the night it had been quiet and pale like this, a softer version of itself.

    This had always been their favourite place. They'd often come here together, all through their lives, to study, to play, to sleep, to talk or sing or just sit in silence and drink up the earth around them. Reita's smile and soft gaze had always been his comfort in those times. But he hadn't seen Reita's smile since before his fall, or that soft gaze since then either. The last two times he had seen him - the time before in this abbey, and then during the war - his face had been covered and his eyes colder than ice.

    Still, he was Reita. Uruha believed that. He could see it still in the familiar but foreign stance, in the way he held his wings. He could hear it in that deep voice. Uruha knew that his Reita was still there, and he longed to see him. All the time apart since Reita’s fall had been unbearable. Uruha had been lost, alone and cold. Even seeing Reita as he was now was better than existing without him. They had been made to be with each other, after all.

    Uruha squatted down, sitting back on his heels as he stared into the tangle of rosebuds. He folded his arms on his knees and rested his chin on them, sighing a bit in loneliness. It was unusual for angels to be in pairs, aside from the few sets of twins. But in each choir there had been some angels that had been put together, for any number of reasons, like for balance of personal natures, or for becoming a unit for given missions, or for both become trusted companions that would lead well. He and Reita had been paired young, and though they had never been told for what fate they had been two parts of a whole, Uruha did know that he always felt most complete with Reita at his side. They had been inseparable, not because of their elders or whatever plans were in place, but because they had enjoyed being with each other. They had been the twins of their own volition as they had been raised, always training to be a pair in religion, in the politics of heaven, in song and in military. They'd complemented each other, and Uruha had honestly never been as happy as he had been with Reita at his side.

    So when Reita had been revealed as a traitor and a sinner, it had hurt Uruha almost to death, and confused him to the point of depression. He still didn't understand, even after the war, even after seeing Reita cut down other angels, how Reita could have ever become a fallen one. He had always been gentle, kind, and caring. He'd always tended to Uruha with the most loving affection. Uruha didn't understand how Reita could have committed any sin grave enough to deserve exile. He didn’t understand how Reita even could have committed one without Uruha knowing it, for how little they were apart. It wasn't Reita to do anything without Uruha’s knowledge or so offensive as to earn such a punishment. There had to be some mistake.

    He wanted Reita back. Uruha was almost desperate for it. He couldn't survive without Reita. They had been created with the intent to be a companionship, and he had grown into that. He was sure Reita felt it too. There had to be some way to prove that Reita wasn't capable of whatever they had decided it was he had done. He'd do anything to get Reita home... for his own selfish reasons, if for no other.

    "I told you to go home and not come back."

    Uruha jumped, crashing to the ground. Reita stood not far away, arms crossed over his chest, his eyes blazing almost like blood in the dark night. Relief and bliss at the sight of him, of being in his presence, flooded Uruha and reawakened every emotion.

    "Reita... God, you're here again!"

    "Don't say that name in my presence," the blonde snapped, his wings lifting threateningly.

    "I'm sorry." Uruha wanted to cry, he felt so wonderful. Reita was here again. He revelled in hearing his voice and feeling his soul, however black it may be. "I didn't mean to offend you."

    "Go home. I won't say it again."

    "Why are you telling me to go home?" he asked now, getting up and straightening his clothes. "You shouldn't even talk to me."

    "No, I shouldn't."

    "So why are you trying to keep me safe and protect me?"

    A short laugh, the eyes narrowing a bit. "Please."

    "What did they do to you?" Uruha asked, trying to change the subject. He wanted to know. Reita seemed so hurt. No matter what face the fallen angel put on, Uruha, more than anyone else, could see that his friend was suffering. "Please tell me."

    "Why should I?"

    "It keeps me up at night. I worry about you. I cry with nightmares about what you might have gone through. I miss you terribly, you should know that!"

    "You wouldn't believe me anyhow. You said so last time."

    "I'll believe what you tell me, Reita. You've never lied to me."

    "Haven't I?"

    Uruha felt his whole body go cold, and he gaped at his friend, unable to even comprehend the idea that Reita had, even once, not told him the truth.

    "I've always been lying to you,” Reita added, his voice cool and smooth.

    "No you haven't." He wouldn't believe it. Reita would never do that! "Don't, Reita, we both know that you haven't. The only lie you've told is what just came out of your mouth."

    "Believe what you want, Uruha. Get out and don't come back."

    "If you tell me what they did to you, I'll leave tonight."

    Reita sighed, turning away. "Your puppy-dog eyes and whining tone won't work on me anymore."

    "Reita, please!"

    Uruha felt almost desperate to understand. He reached out for his friend and, dashing a few paces as the fallen one moved away, managed to grab his arm. Reita whirled, and Uruha winced, waiting for a physical reprimand. But none came. Slowly, he opened one eye, peeking at the cold light in the familiar eyes.

    "Please," he whispered again. "What happened to you? Put my mind at ease. My thoughts have never left you, not in all these years!"

    "What do you think happened?"

    "I don't -"

    "What did they tell you happened? That they called me in, gave me a cup of tea, and we calmly discussed my heresy before I was shown the door and politely escorted out?"

    Uruha bit his lip. That was more or less what he had heard, minus the pleasantness the way Reita phrased it suggested.

    "Surprising," was the sarcastic response. "Of course they would. How could they tell you that they are crueller and more sadistic than demons?"

    "There's no way they are."

    Reita laughed again, wresting his arm away from Uruha's grip. "I assure you it's the truth. Go home, duckling. You wouldn't understand."

    "I want to!"

    "Don't insult me like that!" Reita shouted so loudly the earth seemed to tremble, and Uruha quivered despite himself. "Don't you dare insult me!"

    "I'm not trying to. I want to know. I want to understand, Reita!" He felt like crying, he was so frustrated and lost. Why was Reita holding back? Did he really think Uruha didn't want it? "I want to know what happened to you! I want to know what they've accused you of!"

    "You won't understand."

    "I want to!"

    "YOU WON'T!"

    Uruha trembled into silence at the thunderous voice, staring at his friend. This cold, raging anger... where did it come from? Had they really hurt him that much?

    "My poor Reita," he whispered, voice barely audible.

    "Don't give me that shit, Uruha." When Uruha winced at the sting of the word, Reita snorted. "Don't act like you care."

    "I do, though. I think about you all the time, every single day. I haven't been happy since you left, not until I've seen you here these last two times. Even though you're angry at me and you're hurting, I'm so happy to hear your voice, I don't care what you say to me. Just speak to me. Just let me look at you. Please."

    "Get out. Go home. Go curl up and whimper and whine at someone who gives a fuck."

    "Reita!"

    Before the blonde's name had faded from his tongue, a hand had seized his throat, gripping it so tightly Uruha's body immediately seized and lost its strength. He stared at Reita, struggling as he choked for breath. Those eyes, the only bit of his friend he could see, seemed almost black.

    "Reita," Uruha choked, grabbing his friend's wrist.

    "You want to understand?" Reita asked coldly.

    "Yes..." His touch, something Uruha had desperately been missing, spread warmth through Uruha. "I want to understand."

    "You think you can?"

    "I'll t-try..."

    Reita whirled, slamming him into the stone. Uruha yelped, the impact knocking his sight from him.

    "You think you can understand!?"

    "I'll try, R-Reita...!"

    "You think you can understand what it was like, to be tied and helpless as they beat and whipped me?"

    "Reita..." Uruha was feeling weak, still struggling to breathe and blinking hard to try to clear away the darkness in his eyes.

    "You think you can understand what it was like to starve, and the only water I got was what they threw on me or tried to drown me in?"

    He felt tears in his eyes as he stared dimly at his friend. He wasn't scared of Reita, and it wasn't because of the pain. It was from grief at the thought that Reita had gone through this, grief that he hadn't known what Reita had gone through. It was from anger that he had been so lied to.

    Reita moved, and Uruha felt his body hit the ground. He gasped at impact, air rushing into his lungs, and he sputtered and coughed on it, his tears falling to pool on the grass with the dew. He heard Reita moving, and felt weight suddenly above him. He looked up and was struck immediately, neck cracking with the force of the blow. He whimpered, shuddering at the sting.

    "You think you can understand your wings being stretched and cut, and almost torn out of your back?"

    Something stabbed through one of his wings, and he screamed hoarsely, almost throwing up. Reita grabbed his throat again, pinning him to the ground. Uruha was shaking hard with the pain and the rush of emotions. He didn’t have any strength to try to fight back.

    "Reita, I'm so s-sorry...!" he coughed, holding back nausea.

    "Stop it," Reita barked, and Uruha fell silent, staring pleadingly up at the angry, pulsing eyes. Reita's other hand touched his shoulder and slowly, so slowly, began sliding down his chest. Uruha bit his tongue hard as he felt his body light on fire, aching for more contact. Reita's gaze didn't leave his, and he couldn't look away.

    "You think you can understand," Reita said coldly, "being violated by God's 'chosen judges'?"

    "No," Uruha whispered, heart racing painfully. Reita's light touch drove him crazy. The light brushing and stroking felt so good, and as Reita's hand reached low on his hips, Uruha whimpered, rolling a bit against him. He felt heavy and dazed.

    "Violated, raped as they beat you for your sins."

    "I don't understand." God, it felt so good. Uruha, even in his most shameful dreams, hadn't thought it would be this way. Even in the nights when it became too much, and he let his own hands wander his body, the sensations were nothing compared to how it felt to have Reita touching him. He flexed a bit, a high whine issuing from him as Reita roughly grabbed him. "God!" Reita slammed his head against the ground in response to his cry, and he whimpered again, "I'm s-sorry...!"

    "You won't understand," Reita hissed. "You're too perfect. You're too spoiled. You'll never understand everything I went through, and why I did!"

    "I want to understand," Uruha said, staring up at Reita and trying to not squirm as the sickly-hot flashes of pleasure pounded through him. "I'll try!"

    Reita let go of his leg, moving it to the mask he wore. Uruha held his breath, waiting to see Reita's face again, but the blonde simply moved the bottom up, keeping his nose and cheekbones covered. Still, though, Uruha could see that mouth again, the full lips. Reita leaned down, chin brushing Uruha's. The angel hyperventilated nervously, watching Reita. Then the fallen one bit him, and Uruha gasped in pain. Suddenly Reita's mouth was covering his, lips bruising him, and something wet and warm forced into his mouth while his throat was squeezed tightly. Uruha's eyes rolled a bit, and he moaned against Reita's dominance, feeling weak and unsure of what to do. This was a kiss... it was angry and controlling, but it was a kiss. He grabbed the thick grass, twisting his fists into it to try to contain himself. Reita was kissing him, hard and deep...! But then the blonde pulled back and spat in his face before he could truly enjoy it.

    "You won't understand,” Reita snapped.

    "Please try to help me understand," Uruha begged as Reita started to move away, grabbing for his hands. He didn't pull them away - he kept them where they were, fastened on his throat and inner thigh, so that Reita ‘s touch didn’t leave him. "If it can make you feel better, if it can free you even a little bit from the pain... give it to me. I'll take it. I want to understand. I want to help you, Reita!"

    Silence. Reita stared down at him. With a bit of effort (it was getting hard to breathe again), Uruha smiled up at him, feeling tears rising once more. The anger was gone. Now there was just confusion. If anything, that told him that Reita’s heart hadn’t turned to stone.

    "You went through all of it alone. I would have been there at your side, if I could have. I always wish you were beside me again, that I could do something to fix it. This won't fix it, I know, but... please. Take it out on me. I won't complain. I'll be your saviour, and I'll hold you when it's over. I'll make it better. Not just for you. For me too. I want you with me again."

    No response.

    "Touch me more," Uruha whispered, unable to keep himself from saying it. Hearing it in the open made him tremble more with forbidden emotion. His secret shame, his dreams and desires, were far from pure as angels were meant to be. But he wanted it so much. "Touch me any way you need to. It's okay. Take it out on me."

    "You still want to know why I was damned?" Reita asked, not moving or giving any more to him.

    "Yes. I've never figured it out. You never did anything wrong -"

    "You."

    Uruha lost his voice again, but this time he couldn't find it. He stared wide-eyed up at the fallen angel on top of him, who was crushing him into the ground.

    "You're the reason I'm damned."

    He couldn't breathe. His chest was too tight. He felt like his heart was breaking.

    "Don't," he tried to say, though it was silent, only his lips forming the words. "Don't lie to me like that."

    "I was tortured and raped and cast out of heaven. Because of you."

    Uruha weakly shook his head. It wasn't possible. There was no way that Reita had been hurt just because he'd been there!

    "Can you understand me now?"

    "Please..." Uruha didn't understand. He needed an explanation! "Reita..."

    "Get off him!"

    The weight suddenly lifted, but he still couldn't breathe. He struggled to sit up, using his uninjured wing to help him, and saw Kai fighting Reita off. Their blades were flashing in the moonlight, slicing intricate but violent silver strokes in the air. Uruha watched dazedly, eyes fixed on Reita’s lithe strong form dancing effortlessly, but he only blinked and suddenly he smelled blood. Reita was leaping away into the sky, black form blending into the night.

    "Wait!" Uruha screamed, voice breaking with stress. "Reita!"

    "Damn him," Kai spat. "He let me land that one on him. Get back here and fight!"

    But he was gone. His presence was swept away in a cold wind that brought only silence and stillness. Uruha sat huddled, trembling hard, staring desperately after where he had last seen his friend. He didn't notice Kai kneel down in front of him and start dabbing at him until the actual wound itself was touched.

    "I shouldn't have let you come.” Kai’s voice was a rough growl. “I should have held you back."

    "Reita..." He felt like he was going to die. Was this what it felt like to die, this heart-breaking suffocation? Uruha couldn't stop the tears from raining down. "Reita...!"

    "What was he doing to you? Your wing -"

    "They tortured him." He believed it. The way Reita had said it, the look in his eyes...! Uruha felt sick and betrayed. Those he trusted had lied to him about his best friend! "They tortured him and made him confess to something he didn't do."

    "The hell they did. The heartless bastard was going to kill you."

    "It's something to do with me."

    "Don't listen to him," Kai said grimly, starting to wipe off his face. Uruha jerked at the touch and turned his head quickly. "Uru, let me."

    "No." He covered his face, mostly out of embarrassment that Kai had seen this, but also because he felt dirty for wanting to keep Reita on him. "Don't."

    "Uru -"

    "No."

    A heavy silence. Then Kai's strong hand gripped his chin, forced his head around, and the other angel pushed his hands away and cleaned his face off.

    "You need to be careful what you do, Uruha."

    He felt bitter about it, disgusting as he knew it was... but he knew that deep down, he was more disgusting than anything else. He closed his eyes and recalled the feeling of the rough kiss Reita had given him. It didn't matter to Uruha what the meaning of it had been, to intimidate or frighten him. He had loved it. Reita's taste was still in his mouth, and he clung to the fading savor.

    "Let's get you back home and have you tended to. He's hurt you."

    There was no point in arguing with Kai. He had his mind set, and Uruha could understand why he felt the way he did. He stood on shaking legs and leaned against his friend's back, holding to Kai's strong shoulders as the other angel carried him back. Uruha didn't feel any relief when they reached home, though, or when he changed clothes and fell into bed. He curled up tightly, letting his injured wing stretch out behind him.

    Reita hadn't hurt him, really. Once again, the blonde could have easily killed him, but didn't. Maybe Uruha understood now. It was because he would suffer knowing that, somehow, he had hurt Reita far worse than the fallen angel could ever hurt him. That was something Uruha didn't think he could live with.


	3. Chapter 3

    "You okay?"

    Ruki opened his eyes and looked up at Aoi, offering him a smile. "I'm fine. I'm more robust than I look."

    "I know, but it sounded like he was killing you."

    "Jealous?"

    "Hardly." Aoi leaned over and Ruki accepted the kiss, reaching a hand up to play with the thick, glorious black hair. "You're sure?"

    "Are you being sweet on me, Aoi?"

    "Yes I am, you little bitch."

    Ruki laughed and let Aoi roll him onto his stomach. He sighed as the fallen angel's fingertips gently began working down his back and hips, minding the pale white scars that striped him. "Mm, that's good, baby."

    "He was really rough with you."

    "Mmhm." His hum turned into a slight hiss as Aoi squeezed over his ass and thighs. He knew his lover was examining the bruises and making sure they weren’t worse than they appeared. "I think he needed it, though."

    "Yeah, well..."

    "That's the first he's been that honest in a long time." Ruki propped his chin on his hand, replaying how Reita had come into the room, eyes blazing, torn his mask from his face, and thrown it aside before giving direction in a low, no-nonsense voice. He hadn’t tried to pretend or hide anything. He’d let everything show, everything hang in the air for Ruki to feel. "Poor man."

    "A demon, being sympathetic to angels?"

    "I blame you. You've made me weak for them." Ruki purred as he felt Aoi's pierced lips press into his sore shoulders. "You always could have said no."

    "I could have, but I didn't want to. There was no reason to."

    "You're a good friend."

    "So are you."

    Aoi picked him up now, gathering him into his arms tenderly. Ruki cuddled up to the angel’s chest before lifting his head for a soft, but deep, kiss. He'd been Aoi's consort for a long time now, and he honestly had trouble believing sometimes he had ever let anyone else besides Aoi and Reita touch him. He'd never thought he'd be so well taken care of, or actually treated with respect. Whatever it was that had given Aoi the idea to force him into it, Ruki was grateful for. Many had tried to subjugate him and chain him, but Aoi was the only one that had managed it, and Ruki was quite willingly trapped.

    His lover carried him into the bath and lowered him into the tub. Ruki bit his lip as the hot water stung the rough marks Reita had left on his thin, flat body. Within a few minutes, though, he relaxed and laid back, letting Aoi take another kiss from him.

    "You're a wonderful man," Ruki told him as he gazed up at the angel. "I'm glad you chose me."

    "From the second I saw you, I couldn't have chosen anyone else." Aoi smiled a bit and nuzzled him, settling down beside the bath. "And you were a pleasure to conquer."

    "I could tell."

    A soft, low chuckle came from deep in Aoi’s throat, giving Ruki slight shivers, before he spoke. "I never thank you enough for being good to Reita, too."

    "Reita's my friend, and he respects us. I'd have to be good to him, especially when he's falling apart like he is now."

    "I'm sorry you're not the one he sees."

    "I'm okay with it." Ruki reached up and wrapped his arms around Aoi's neck. "I'm used to it. At least I know he loves the one he pretends I am, rather than simply lusting for him and being willing to do anything to be inside."

    "That's true."

    They sat in silence for a little bit. Ruki closed his eyes and nestled his face against Aoi's, breathing deeply, letting his body release the feelings of Reita pounding him harder than he could almost take. He'd done his best to keep quiet and let Reita just take things out, but with that amount of intense and almost-violent force, it was no wonder Aoi thought it had sounded like bloody murder. Ruki couldn't help but scream with both pain and pleasure.

    "What should we do?" he asked after awhile of calming quiet when he had gotten his wits back.

    "I don't know if there's anything we can do, Ru."

    "I'm curious about the bitch."

    "Why?" Aoi asked dryly.

    "Not for any reason that should worry you. I'm just curious about what's got Reita so wrapped around his finger. I have a hard time imagining Reita with the naive innocent type."

    "Uruha's not as naive as he looks, but he's pretty…" Aoi paused, clearly searching for an appropriate word. “… well, dumb.”

    Ruki bit back a laugh nibbled on Aoi's lower lip. He earned a deep, long kiss as a reward. When they parted from it, Ruki said, "You've never really talked about Uruha."

    "It upsets Reita." Aoi sighed, sliding a hand down Ruki's chest and stomach into the water, low on his hips. "Uruha is beautiful, in a lot of ways. Physically, he definitely is beautiful, but in heart and mind he’s also lovely.”

    “Why so?”

    “He's very bright, always smiling. He likes to make everyone happy, make sure they’re well and safe, because that's what makes him happy. Especially with the younger ones, he was very caring. He liked to share what he had. He did get pushed around a lot, because he was so tender, but even then he didn’t let it change how he was with others. And always, always best to Reita. Always happiest with Reita."

    "That sounds more like someone he'd be with." Reita was a good man, and very caring. It only followed that he'd love someone similar.

    "But because he's so gentle and pure of mind, he kind of doesn't always understand everything around him. He focuses on other people, not his surroundings. I think that's what makes him a bit of a klutz sometimes."

    "Reita was always there to pick him up?"

    "Always. But that innocent trait of his is probably why he doesn’t realise the reason for Reita’s fall." Aoi kissed Ruki's shoulder, rubbing the demon's hips softly and earning a moan of approval at the gentle touch. "If you go to see him, don't let Reita know."

    "Of course not."

    He felt fingers slip into him, and despite himself he let out a sharp puff of air at the intrusion. Aoi didn't apologise, but he kept it slow and careful, probing to feel out any injuries. A bath and then a check was a familiar ritual for after harder and more violent rounds. Strange as it was to think an angel was doing it to him, at the same time it was soothing. Aoi did take very good care of him.

    "Don't hurt Uruha, either," Aoi said, about five minutes after they'd left off, as he pulled his forefinger and little finger out.

    "Not physically." For Reita's sake, Ruki needed to know exactly how Uruha felt. If Uruha was like Reita said, and didn't love Reita back, Ruki would break it. Reita might hate him for it, but maybe the angel would be able to live easier. Ruki couldn’t stand to see Reita like this any longer.

    "That's all I'll ask."

    A finger slid into the front again, and Ruki whined on a tiny breath as Aoi rubbed a sore spot. As the twinge of pain faded, Ruki asked, "What am I allowed to say to him to get him to listen to me?"

    "You tell him whatever you feel you need to, babe. Just remember you're mine, or I'll put you back on a leash and retrain you."

    Ruki kissed under Aoi's chin a couple of times lightly. "Such an understanding master."

    "I try." There were another few moments while Aoi tried the back again. When he finally withdrew, he added, "If you need a break, you can tell me and I'll keep Reita off you."

    "I'll be okay. You know I'm very strong."

    "I know."

    He closed his eyes as Aoi kissed over them. "I might need some time with you, though."

    "If you think that's what you need. He did bang you up pretty bad though. He certainly used everything you have. Maybe you should rest."

    "I need to lick over your scars again," he purred happily, wrapping a hand around the back of Aoi's neck to touch one of the coal-black brands. "Taste you and feel you."

    "Then I'll give it to you."

    Reita returned later, not showing any outward sign of anything wrong, so Ruki bit his lip and decided to hold back on paying this Uruha a visit. The blonde angel left him and Aoi alone for the night, saying he wanted his own space, so the demon was able to curl up with Aoi's broad, sleek wings blanketing him.

    Reita started avoiding them not much later. He would smile, but it was empty. He turned down their invitations for anything and shut himself away in his half of their mansion, almost never showing himself aside from his exit to his duties and his entry when they were done. Ruki began to worry, but Aoi told him to do nothing, so he kept quiet.

    "It worries me," the demon said some time later as he was sitting at the side of the grand bath, lavishing attention on his master. Aoi looked back, tossing his head to let some of his wet black hair out of the way.

    "What does?"

    "Reita being this withdrawn. He’s done this before, but not to this extent."

    "He needs some space." Aoi leaned his head forward, allowing Ruki to pull the rest of the curtain of hair aside. "He's a private man."

    "Yet he'll double-team me with you," Ruki retorted dryly as he rubbed soothing oil into the charred skin of the brand. "And he does it not very shyly at all."

    "When he needs it. But it's not a bad thing to let him have his own time."

    "I guess not." The demon traced the lines now, lovingly, knowing the pattern by heart. "But if he's like this for too much longer..."

    "I'll talk to him. Or you can." Wings like those of ravens lowered into the water and extended, giving Ruki access to the angel’s upper back. “If you want to.”

    "You probably should." He ran his hands across Aoi's shoulders and down onto his arms, gracing another scar on the way. Moving his hand back up to massage that one too, he added, "I think he's more likely to listen to you."

    "Do you? I always thought he was sweet towards you."

    "He's that way with everyone."

    Aoi snorted. “I don’t think so. Not like he is with you.”

    “You are jealous aren’t you?”

    “Do they bother you?" Aoi asked, changing the subject as Ruki traced the pattern of the second sigil.

    "No, they look good on you." Ruki leaned down over the wing and kissed the side of Aoi's arm softly, sucking a bit. Internally, he was chuckling at Aoi’s blatant avoidance of answering Ruki’s question. "I like them."

    "I'm glad."

    "Even if I didn't, there's nothing that can be done about them. But I do like them. They show just how bad you are."

    "You like me when I'm bad, do you?"

    "So much." Ruki smirked and licked up the side of Aoi's arm again, staring up at his master’s face hotly. He saw the flare in the dark eyes - not that it was hard for him to make that happen - and revelled in winning what he wanted. "I love it when you're naughty."

    "Then I think I’ll indulge you for a bit."

    They were lounging, Ruki spread between Aoi’s legs and head resting on his stomach, when Reita came in much later. His face was covered again, and while his body suggested he was fine, Ruki could see in his eyes that he was at his edge. They looked at each other for a long while in silence before the blonde said quietly, "Please."

    "Of course, Reita." Aoi rubbed Ruki's arm. "If you're okay with it, Ru."

    Ruki got up and went to Reita, taking one of his sharp wrists and raising the angel's hand to his mouth. Gazing up into those tired but smouldering eyes, Ruki nibbled on a fingertip slowly and felt Reita’s reaction to the stimulation.

    "Anything you want, Reita," he murmured. “I’m all yours.”

    Reita pulled away and turned his back, heading for the stairs. Ruki glanced towards Aoi just to be certain he was allowed to do this. The darker angel nodded after Reita, which gave Ruki the permission to go up the staircase into the less-familiar part of the grand mansion. Reita didn’t turn around to make sure he was being followed. His back was slightly hunched, but his shoulders were stiff, betraying, just as much as his eyes had, the emotional strain he was bearing.

    Once they were in the room, Ruki passed Reita and went to sit on the bed. He leaned back on his hands and waited for instruction. Reita took a minute, just looking at him as if measuring him up, before he unwrapped his mask and dropped it. Ruki licked his lips a bit and let his gaze wander the angel’s fully-revealed face.

    "Clothes off."

    Reita’s voice was low. It wasn’t commanding, like Ruki had expected, but rather was almost weary, as if he were so exhausted by his own frustration that he couldn’t manage to give orders. Ruki obliged, making the stripping slow and deliberate, only slightly sensual. He didn't look away from Reita's eyes, not even to let his eyes trace the lines marring the angel’s face. When he was naked, he sat back again, arching his chest forward.

    "Legs open."

    Ruki slid his thighs apart obediently.

    "Quiet."

    He closed his eyes when Reita approached, put one hand on Reita's bicep to steady himself as he was pressed down to the bed and moved into position. The angel's breath was low and rough in his ear, unsteady. Knowing what Reita needed, Ruki whispered to him, reassuring him, "Give it to me. I’ll take all of it for you."

    When Reita was gone, Aoi came in and sat next to him again. Ruki rolled over on his own this time, seeking his master’s affection. 

    "Okay?" Aoi asked softly.

    "Fine." Ruki laid his head against Aoi's hip, closing his eyes as the angel's fingertips ran through his hair. "Don't worry."

    "You're thinking about going to see Uruha now."

    The demon nodded.

    "Was it that bad?"

    "You heard him."

    Aoi let out a heavy, bitter sigh, his touches pausing for just a heartbeat. "I wish he'd never seen Uruha again."

    "Same here." Ruki sat up with some difficulty, holding the sheets loosely in his lap. He did his best to ignore the pain and ache of almost every single muscle. "I'll get dressed and go."

    "Lie back first."

    He might have said no, but the angel's expression was very firm. Ruki knew better than to try to argue, so obediently he lay down and let his lover examine him, letting out soft noises when Aoi felt for anything inside, doing his best to hide his winces and flinches and noises of discomfort. Once more, and just as Ruki had asked of him, Reita hadn't held back. Like Aoi had said the time before, Reita had taken everything Ruki could give. The demon had given it, and gladly so, but he was still spent and weak from having accepted every last bit of Reita’s turmoil.

    "Dress to kill," Aoi told him when he finished checking. Tilting Ruki’s head back and kissing him deeply, the angel continued, "I want you to give that motherfucker the best goddamn trample of his life."

    "Believe me, I plan to."


	4. Chapter 4

    Uruha escaped back down to the abbey as soon as he could. His wing didn't take long to heal; Reita really hadn't done much damage to it. It was the watch Kai kept on him that prevented him from leaving sooner. His friend barely ever left him alone, and it seemed that if Uruha even thought about going back, Kai would be there, frowning at him. It continued that way for awhile, probably some years by Earth's time, before he found that Kai relaxed and didn't keep watch on him as much anymore. Uruha didn't push it, but when he felt safe, he slipped away and descended back to the once-grand abbey to have some time alone.

    It was more than just wanting to see Reita that he left as quickly as he could, but also wanting to get away from the place he felt sick in now. Knowing he had been lied to about what his dearest friend had gone through, and now suspecting what their relationship was for, was driving Uruha crazy. Not only that, but now knowing his own feelings, having confirmed them with this last meeting and having had them dragged up to the forefront, he now felt like it should have been him thrown out. He didn't belong in heaven. Escaping was the only time now he felt like he could breathe.

    Part of him didn't expect Reita to come back. He knew he shouldn't be doing it either. It had been fairly clear that Reita didn't want to see him. But Uruha still wanted to see his friend, and he still believed that Reita cared about him, even a tiny bit. If he didn't, why not just kill him? Why not sweep him away and torture him? It didn't make any sense, if the blonde angel felt nothing.

    Uruha sank down onto the base of a stone pillar, sighing as he stretched his white wings and let them rest in the dewy grass. The beads, pure as moonlight, soaked into his wingtips, as if to ease his feelings. He tilted his head back and looked up to the stars, enjoying them, before he whispered a small prayer.

    "Please... I want to see him."

    "You must be Uruha."

    The light voice made him start, and he looked around wildly, looking for the source. It wasn't Reita's. He didn't recognise it at all.

    "You aren't quite what I expected."

    With those words, he was able to locate a dark figure perched atop the arch of the ruined windows across the abbey where the voice was lilting from. It was a small person, black in the shadows, barely visible. There was nothing about the form or near-hidden presence that was familiar.

    "Who are you?" Uruha asked, cursing that he hadn't come with a weapon this time. Ice prickled down his spine at the thought of being attacked. He was a decent fighter, but he had heard of more than a couple of times that other angels had been ambushed by large gangs of demons in the last bit since he had been down.

    "Don't worry, I'm unarmed. I didn't come to hurt you. Only to look. Come closer, maybe I'm seeing you wrong."

    Uruha glowered, squinting his eyes a bit. With the effort, he could now make out a short, but slender, flat frame. Pairing the body with the deeper voice, Uruha placed him as male. Aside from that, all he could see were bright, glowing sky-blue eyes.

    “Come closer, you’ll be able to see better.”

    Normally he would refuse to do so, but something tickled him into standing and cautiously taking a few steps closer. With the slightly-closer distance and a few more moments, his eyes adjusted to where he was looking and he was able to see more of the man before him. Long wavy hair curled onto dark feathers that framed the other’s neck and flowed out to flare on his shoulders. He had feathers around his wrists as well, and his torso was striped with black material and lacing that left little to the imagination. Shredded thigh-high stockings eclipsed his legs, and high-heeled sandals gleaming with spikes strapped his feet. Uruha felt a slight rush of blood at the sight, his heart skipping a few beats with intoxication. Then he realised it, and he hissed, "You’re a demon.”

    "I am." It leaned forward with a small haughty smile, those unnatural eyes staring at him. "Really... even though I've been told about you, I didn't expect this."

    "Who are you?" Uruha demanded again, trying to throw off the fake sensual draw this demon had on him. The tension was much stronger than he had thought, and he was very unsuccessful in his attempts.

    "Sorry, I'll introduce myself now. Hello, Uruha. My name is Ruki.” The demon put a hand over its heart, movements and voice enhancing the aura of pride and self-importance. “I'm Reita's whore."

    The statement hit Uruha like lightning. Shaken, he stared wide-eyed, trying to absorb what he had just been told.

    "What?" Ruki asked, recrossing his legs, moving slowly and widely enough to show himself off.

    "You're... what...?" Despite his best efforts, and despite what had just been said, Uruha couldn't keep his eyes off the line of the inner thigh, the slight curve, up to the groin. Damn him! He had something else to focus on.

    "Reita's whore," was the patient response. Ruki leaned back now, the moonlight playing across the feathers he wore and shining down his slight but somehow seductive body.

    "You're lying," Uruha snapped, sounding much more grounded than he actually felt. Reita, with this creature? Doing carnal things with him? He felt his stomach drop at the idea, nausea rising even as hunger, teased by whatever powers granted to such a being, stirred.

    "I'm really not. If you smelled me, you'd find his scent smeared all over me." Ruki raised a hand to his mouth, sucking on his fingers with a smug look. "As soon as he finished with me I dressed and came to see you."

    "Liar." Reita wouldn't do such things. He told himself that over and over. Reita wouldn't. Reita couldn't.

    "Do you want to smell and confirm it for yourself?"

    "I don't need to."

    "There's no lying about that man." Ruki opened his legs now, ran a hand down between them, rubbing himself. Uruha turned his head, not wanting to watch, but he couldn't block out the words or the jerk in his stomach. The demon’s purring voice continued, "Such a wonderful beast. A god's body, tall and lean and strong... and so, so _big_..."

    "You shouldn't say such things about him -"

    "I can barely get my mouth around him when I suck his cock. And then he shoves it into me, and I can see and feel every muscle in his body."

    "Stop it." Hearing it was making his body hot, and he bit his lip at the familiar, but strange, feelings that Ruki's words and actions incited inside him. He couldn't think about it, he'd done enough! But Ruki wouldn't stop. He kept speaking in his syrupy voice, purposely emphasizing every filthy word.

    "He holds me close as he thrusts into my ass and my cunt, murmuring dirty, filthy vile things into my ear about what he wants to do with me. He pounds me so hard I scream. He fucks me so hard it leaves me breathless."

    "Stop it." Uruha's voice was choked. He wanted it. He could feel it, Reita's hands on him, Reita’s rough kisses, and even, maybe, inside…!

    "He cums inside me and fills me up with the most delicious, unholy cream and he watches it drip out of me. And then he rolls me over and we do it again. All night. Over and over and over, he fucks me and I hold to him and I scream with delight."

    "Stop!"

    Ruki was quiet for a bit in response to that screech. Uruha breathed hard, trying to calm and control himself in the silence. He couldn't show this. He couldn't feel this... but he did, so sorely, so intensely. This demon's aura was dragging it out of him in his state of unwanted arousal.

    "He told me about you," Ruki said after a bit, and Uruha heard a bit of movement. Looking over, he saw Ruki land gracefully on the ground despite the shoes he wore. He straightened up, stroking the feathers wrapped around his thin shoulders, not even looking at Uruha as he did so. "Afterwards."

    Uruha just glared, still trying to calm his heart.

    "He was thrown out of heaven because of you,” Ruki added, not giving him the slightest glance. “Hard to believe."

    "I'm sorry that I was the excuse they used for it."

    Ruki laughed, startling Uruha. The angel hadn’t expected such a response. After a few moments of laughing, Ruki lifted his head, looked Uruha in the eye, and said with a smirk, "Sorry. I just thought maybe you'd be more responsible."

    "What could I be responsible for? I haven't done anything!"

    "That's part of the problem, isn't it? You sit up in heaven, being spoiled and treated like a prince, and you do nothing, while he suffers down in hell." Ruki shrugged, examining long, black, perfectly-manicured nails now. "I guess I shouldn't say suffers. He doesn't suffer all the time. But he hates heaven because of what it did to him. And you did nothing."

    "If I had known I would have done something! And what place do you have to say anything? Reita is my best friend!"

    "Not anymore."

    "Even still! Even if he doesn't feel that way about me, I feel that way about him!"

    "Just friends, hm. Yet you claim you would do something for him."

    "Of course I would!" Uruha was seriously angry now. He could feel his feathers standing up on end. How dare this slut try to chastise him! "He means everything to me!"

    "So why have you done nothing so long?" Ruki asked, pinning him with a cold glare. "If he means everything to you, why not contact him until just awhile ago? Even then, it was just by chance you saw him."

    Uruha was struck by this. Why hadn't he? No, he knew the reason. Because he was scared of being punished, because he had been grieving too much, because the idea that Reita might strike at him again was too much to take. But he didn't want to admit it. He stammered, not wanting to let Ruki have anything to sneer about, "I... I did, for a long time, I searched for him, but I…"

    "You gave up?"

    "No!" He hadn't. He had hoped and prayed every day that somehow, he could see Reita again. That wasn't giving up, was it? "I just... I didn't know what to do..."

    Ruki snorted loudly. "You're pathetic."

    Uruha bit his lip hard, feeling anger pounding in his head. At the same time, Ruki’s comment hurt, hurt because Uruha knew it was true. "I want to fix it. You don't know how badly I do. I want him back, more than anything!"

    "Yet you do nothing. You don't want him that badly."

    "I do! If you knew how much I've missed him, you'd run with your tail between your legs!"

    "From what I'm hearing, you don't miss him. You don't care for him. If you do, it was for the man you knew before. He's not that man anymore. And you only shout at me because it's your own self-righteousness, not your feelings. You don't make any movement because you know he isn't your friend, and you don't want to have someone that's a complete stranger."

    Uruha struggled to respond, but he couldn't. He felt so guilty, so angry at himself! He hadn't tried hard enough. What Ruki was saying wasn't true, but it made him angry that Ruki thought that way. That maybe Reita thought that way.

    "You feel guilt for being the reason he was defiled, but you do nothing but sit there and feel sorry for yourself, not for him. 'I'm so sorry Reita!' 'I'll understand you, Reita!'” Ruki snorted loudly and rolled his eyes. “You don't give a shit about him. You don't care about him. Only about how you think others see you. You have to pretend you care, that you want him back, but deep down you don't feel a thing. You'd rather he -"

    "I love him!" Uruha screamed, bursting out against all instinct that told him to hold it back. "I love him! He's the most important thing in the entire universe to me! How do you think I felt when I was told he betrayed me, and he made no effort to contact me and tell me otherwise? How do you think I felt when I saw him opposite me in the war, when he pushed me down and trampled over me? How do you think I've felt all these years, alone and broken-hearted, and heard others speak nothing but ill of him, when I love him so much I've cried myself to sleep without him beside me? SWhat place do you have to tell me?! You're just a whore! You don't know anything about my feelings for him! You don't know anything about feelings or love at all! He hates me, yes, but I would still lay myself down at his feet! He hates me, but I love him so much I can feel heaven quaking to destroy me! I love him! I love him!"

    He threw all his emotions he had at Ruki, who watched with an emotionless face, even when Uruha started to cry. The angel covered his face, feeling ashamed of himself for saying it out loud, for crying as he did so, for admitting it to this creature. Now that he had said it, it was only a matter of time before the law came down on him. He was ashamed, and he was scared. But he couldn't not say it, especially not to someone accusing him of such things.

    "I love him and I would be damned because of it,” he whimpered all too pathetically when he was able to manage speaking. “But I don't regret it. I just fear not being able to do anything to redeem his name for what they've accused him of."

    "And what did they accuse him of?" Ruki asked shortly.

    "I don't know, and that's the ill of it! He says it's to do with me, but I don't understand. What about me damned him? If I knew, I'd let him kill me himself to allow him some redemption."

    "But you would feel hatred towards him."

    "Not even for a second. I'll always forgive him, of anything. I've never hated him. I've never blamed him. I've always wanted to welcome him back with open arms. I told him last time to do anything to me, and when he was done, I would hold him close. I still feel that way. If he brought a sword down on me, I'd still profess to love him."

    "You never have professed to love him, before now. If you cared so deeply for him, why not tell him?"

    "How could I? He'd never have listened, or believed me, even if he smiled at me for it."

    Ruki kept watching him for a moment, still not showing a hint of emotion. Then he said, "If I told him to come here, and avenge himself on you, would you let him?"

    "Yes." Uruha didn’t even have to think about it. He’d do anything to alleviate Reita’s suffering.

    "Even without knowing why?"

    "Yes," Uruha replied, his heart aching. He wanted to know. But if Reita couldn't say, that was alright. If his death was the only thing that could ease Reita's existence, he'd offer it. If anyone had to kill him, he wanted it to be Reita. "I want to know why, but..."

    "I might be moved to tell him, if for no other reason than to be rid of you." Ruki unfolded his arms, stretching them over his head and tensing that lean and admittedly beautiful body. "But if you saw the brand, you'd know why."

    "The brand?"

    "They scar the fallen angels with the symbols of their fall from grace. Reita's is here." Ruki flicked his finger under his left eye. "Hidden away, because of his humiliation and because he can’t bear any reminder of what happened."

    The wraps and masks. Uruha felt so stupid to have not thought of it. But he had never even thought that Reita would have been tortured. Learning that he had been marked in addition to being tortured shouldn’t have been a surprise.

    "I'll tell him to come, that you'll offer yourself up. But you have to tell him how you feel, so he knows exactly how wretched you are before you die. Otherwise, he won't be coming back, ever, and I’ll make sure of it."

    That scared Uruha, but he shakily nodded his head. He couldn't keep living with himself for being the cause of Reita's pain.  He couldn't stand the idea of being alone, hated by Reita and cast from heaven, with nowhere to turn to. Wiping away another tear and cursing himself for being so weak, he said, "If it will bring him here, I'll tell him."

    "Then the deal is made. Six days."

    Ruki turned to leave. Suddenly Uruha called, "Wait!" without planning to. The demon paused and looked back at him, and Uruha blurted out, "Are you really... does he... really...?"

    Another smirk crossed the demon's face, and he stepped close, holding his hands out. "I told you. Come smell."

    Uruha hesitated, but then took a few paces to Ruki, leaned over, and inhaled deeply. Reita's scent, different from how Uruha’s memories smelled, but just like him all the same, filled his lungs. He felt another tear fall as he realised Ruki was telling the truth, and slowly, he knelt down and bowed his head.

    "Do you wish he'd touch you that way?" Ruki purred, not moving and torturing Uruha with Reita's presence. "Smear himself all over you? Defile you deep inside?"

    He didn't reply, but he could feel himself tremble with jealousy and grief.

    "These feathers are from the wings of a fallen angel. Woven for me to wear, to show who I belong to. I'm the property of an angel. I only have sex with an angel."

    Uruha covered his face again, trying hard to hold back the wave of emotions boiling in him again.

    "Goodbye, Uruha. It wasn't a pleasure to meet you. Not for now, anyway. Only if I see Reita smile again will this have been worth it."

    Silence fell, and when Uruha had the strength to look up, he confirmed that Ruki was gone. He stayed for awhile, feeling cold and afraid, of his feelings, of Reita's anger, of heaven’s anger falling on him.

    "I don't want this," he whispered. "I don't want to be the reason Reita suffers. I don't want to live without him. I don't want to live knowing he's... he’s… with someone else...!"

    He didn't deserve heaven. He was filthy, wanting Reita, wanting the love, the touch, the intimacy - everything he was forbidden from having. The love he'd felt for his friend in their earliest days was the pure love that heaven allowed its angels. But now, it was tinged with lust, deeper than he'd thought possible, deep into the basest part of himself that turned him into a sinner. He wanted Reita in every way, like how Ruki had him. The envy he felt towards that slight, sensual demon for being the one Reita turned to pushed him even further into damnation.

    "I don't deserve it, any of it!" His tears fell faster, dotting the soft spears of grass beneath his clenched hands. “Not me!”

    At the very least, he didn't have to live with it much longer. He'd apologise to Reita and set things as right as he could, and then he'd be free. Even dead, he'd still love his friend and watch over him. He just hoped it would be enough.


	5. Chapter 5

    "I'll come with you, if you want."

    Reita shook his head, folding his wings a bit tighter. He honestly was pissed off at Ruki for speaking for him, striking a deal, and promising that he would go back. He couldn’t see Uruha again. Not for anything. His heart couldn't bear it, especially since Uruha didn't understand what he was trying to offer himself to, and even more especially because it could put Uruha at risk of torture and death. He didn't think Uruha would be strong enough to survive the inquisition and fall. And it would be for nothing!

    "You should go," Aoi told him quietly. "It will be the last time. Just put everything out in the open. If he hates you, that's it. If he still cares for you, is it so bad?"

    "If he dies, yes."

    "And if he doesn't?"

    "He deserves so much better than what's down here."

    " _You_ deserve so much better than what's down here, Reita. There’s no reason for you to be here in the first place.” The darker angel gave him a slight, friendly nudge. “But here you are, and you've managed to be happy with me and with Ruki, when he came along. Aside from him, you’ve been happy right? Maybe he could manage it too."

    Reita shook his head, feeling a bit guilty that Aoi would even think that he was suggesting he hadn’t had good times. Aoi had taken him under his wing, so to speak, and truly helped him to come to enjoy his circumstances. But he couldn’t make Uruha go through all that. There was no way Uruha could even understand how things were here. The way Ruki had said the angel had reacted to him was proof enough of that.

    "You need to, Reita. You have to let something go, or you'll explode, and I won't watch it."

    "Then don't."

    Aoi sighed and ran a hand through his hair, his expression drawn. "Reita..."

    "Fine. I'll go." He wanted Uruha. Would it be so bad to steal him away? Yes, it would be, he reminded himself. If Uruha didn't feel the same way, it would be terrible to tear him from heaven just to satisfy lust. "But I am still angry as all hell at Ruki."

    "Save it for when you get back. Go see Uruha. Tell him how you feel about him. Tell him the real reason why they cast you out.”

    Reita stood without moving for a few minutes before he looked up at his friend. Aoi smiled a bit at him.

    "I'll be here waiting, like I always am."

    He nodded, just once, and turned, leaving and dragging his feet as he did so. It wasn't that he didn't want to go - because he did - but because he wanted to push it back as far as possible. The only reason he wanted to was to see his beloved. He didn't want to face Uruha and tell him the real reason, the details, of why he'd been cast from grace. The reservation and resistance was only because Uruha was safe and comfortable in heaven, in the place he should be. If he were in any other state, Reita would tell him with far less hesitation. Hell wasn't all bad, not as a ranked fallen angel. But for Uruha, even as a consort or a concubine, it would probably be too much.

    Reaching the gate, he spread his wings and, with a grimace, took off and soared from hell into the other side. He willed the clearer, crisper air to fill him and calm him, but it rather seemed to give fuel to his anxieties, and by the time he landed at that familiar holy ground, he had to take a few minutes to pull himself together. He could sense Uruha inside, and that presence was the only thing that touched him with ease. That person the only thing he wanted. Steeling himself, he moved and entered the abbey.

    Uruha whirled when he felt Reita's impressive presence enter, and the blonde angel with wide dark wings met his view. Reita approached, saying nothing, and stopped several paces from him. The silence was heavy and depressing as they simply looked at each other, waiting for the other to speak. The bright-winged angel tried to organise his thoughts, but it was so hard when Reita was _right there_ and his body was yearning for the blonde to lay hands on him again. So the first thing that came out, despite his mind telling him not to, was:

    "Is it true? You have a… a whore down in hell?"

    Reita's eyes just gazed at him, seeming very calm, almost cold. Uruha's heart broke with despair. Why should a thing like Ruki have him?

    "Why? You didn't need him. You shouldn't have needed him!"

    "You don't know," was the smooth but curt response, "what it's like."

    "I would if you'd tell me! I just want to know what's happened to you! What's the truth?" Uruha swallowed back some angry tears. He just wanted Reita to open up to him again! "Why, for any of it!?"

    "You. You're the reason."

    "Don't!" Uruha shook his head, frustrated. "Don't give me that if it's not the truth!"

    "It is true."

    "What did I ever do? I was never cruel to you, Reita! What could I have possibly done?"

    "You're the reason for it, but it was nothing you did. It was what I did."

    He stared, confused, angry, unsure of what to say or do. After a few seconds of quiet, Reita lifted a hand and pulled down the wrap he wore over the lower part of his face, revealing the angry black brand searing his skin under his left eye. Then Uruha's heart thudded and stopped when he realised what it was - the sigil of the sin of Lust.

    "I fell in love with you," was Reita’s quiet statement.

    Those words made time stop. It took forever to sink into Uruha what had been said. An eternity later, Uruha, with too much difficulty, tore his gaze from the telltale mark to look into Reita's eyes. The amber depths were no longer cold, but instead were full of mourning. In response to his dumbfounded stare, the blonde continued, "I fell in love with you. It was more than I could bear sometimes, being at your side every moment and knowing I could never tell you, or express my feelings. Watchers knew, but they had no proof, so I stayed with you longer than they liked. And then one night I made a mistake."

    "What did you do?" Uruha asked, his voice choked to a whisper. He was finally processing it. Reita was in love with him...!

    "I kissed you while you slept, because I couldn't keep everything inside anymore. Not the warm familial kiss, that we give as greeting and comfort, not the light brush on the cheek. On your lovely lips. I thought, just one innocent kiss like this, and it would be easier to go on. I didn't know that I was being watched so closely. I kissed you, and the moment I stepped out I was dragged away to be tortured for my disobedience and yielding to temptation."

    Uruha felt like crying, and the emotions boiling inside him made it difficult to keep himself from doing so. Reita loved him. Reita had fallen because of it. He had been tortured and maimed and thrown from heaven due to it. The idea of his friend loving him so much as to bear all that shook Uruha to his very core.

    "Because I let it manifest itself physically, they could charge me with lust. It isn't too far off. I wanted you in every way. I hungered for you, soul and body. Nights I stayed awake fantasizing about you, committing sinful acts to sate my physical hungers, those counted against me too. I can't tell you how every night for so, so long, I have violated you in waking or sleeping dreams. I've wanted all of you. My lust for you is unbearable, even now. But beneath it all is the love I have for you, your smile, your laugh, your voice, your gentle touch, your warm nature, your pure soul, the love that grew for the innocent love of children into love so strong as to want to be part of you. That is my sin, Uruha. I loved you too much."

    "So why not come claim me?" Uruha asked, unable to keep his feelings from making his voice raw. "You could have always had me!"

    "Because I couldn't bring myself to tear you from heaven, which you deserve, and make you unhappy just to take you to my bed for even one night. You deserve the light and the warmth and the praise of heaven. You're so pure. It's where you belong."

    "I am not pure." Admitting it, even to Reita and even after having said it before, was difficult. He had kept it a secret for so long. But Uruha realised that he needed to say it, not because he had promised, but because Reita needed to know. And Uruha needed Reita to know. "I am undeserving of heaven. I am a filthy degenerate that should be cast out."

    "No. You're not."

    "I am! Reita -"

    "Don't say it!"

    The loud command startled him for a moment. Uruha could see realisation cross Reita’s face. Reita understood, and he was trying to prevent it.

    "You don't know what you're doing, Uruha," he added, his voice stern and yet somehow fragile, as if he were about to break from knowing what Uruha was going to say.

    "How could I not? I haven't passed a night without crying since I lost you. I watched other friends cast out, knowing that they too had disobeyed. Even then, so many nights, like you, I stayed awake..." Uruha hugged himself tightly, remembering the thousands of nights he had disobeyed to pretend Reita was with him again. "I dreamt of you as I explored my body, and found what I wanted you to do with it -"

    "Don't say it, Uruha!"

    "- How I wanted you to take me, body and soul, and hear you whisper in my ear as we became one." The control for his tears was long past, and they ran in torrents down his face. Even so, he couldn't keep himself from smiling. Reita loved him. That was the only thing that mattered. "You became one with me."

    "Uruha, no."

    Something was flickering in his expression – was it joy? It seemed so. A bit of painful joy at hearing Uruha’s words. Reita had dreamed just as much as he had, and despite his sternness that Uruha not speak, he seemed to want Uruha to say it. Uruha took a small breath and spoke.

    "I love you."

    "Don't."

    "I love you so much. I've missed you so much. Every day since you left has been torture. I've only had fantasy to survive on, wishing for the sinful things I never could have. I would have fallen with you, Reita, if you had only told me!"

    The blonde shook his head. "Take it back, Uruha. It's a lie. You don't want it."

    "I've never wanted anything more than I've wanted to be with you, both beside you and joined with you body and soul, no matter how sinful it might be. I love you. I've always loved you! And nothing will change that. I can't pretend it isn't how I feel."

    Reita's face was full of grief now. The expression was what Uruha would have expected at a funeral. He understood why Reita looked that way, and it chilled him a bit. Slowly, Uruha edged near his friend, not wanting Reita to flee.

    "I'm not scared, if it means I can be with you."

    "Uruha, please..."

    "I love you." Close enough now, he reached out and cupped a hand around Reita's cheek. Feeling his friend's skin again, being so close to him that he could smell the blonde’s smoky scent, were small indulgences Uruha could get drunk on. "My best friend, my protector, my better half. I've never stopped loving you, not for a second."

    Reita closed his eyes, and he put a hand over Uruha's, holding it in place. "Uru…"

    "And now I know how much you love me too. How much you sacrificed for your feelings. I don't deserve that much strength of feeling, Reita!"

    "You do, though.” Reita turned his face slightly, lips pressing into Uruha’s palm. That was all, as if he were afraid another kiss would damn Uruha regardless. “You are the most beautiful being. You deserve to be loved, and venerated, and worshipped. And I do."

    A thought, filthy and wonderful, emerged in his scrambled mind. Not even trying to stop himself, Uruha whispered, "Make love to me. Here. Now."

    "Uruha -"

    "I can't go without it." His whole body was trembling with the strength of their emotions, of their lust, of the years apart and the grief at the lost time. Uruha leaned in and awkwardly put his lips to Reita’s in an unskilled copy of what he remembered his friend doing to him before. He felt the fallen angel give in to it ever so slightly, and that emboldened him. "I need you to love me."

    "You'll be in trouble."

    "I don't care. I want you more than I want anything else. Please don't deny me."

    "What if they cast you out?"

    "Now that I've spoken my feelings, they will anyway. Sooner or later, someone will bring me for judgement. I'll be caught, either by my words or by my self-abuse as I pretend you're with me. So please, don't make me suffer it alone any longer."

    Reita hesitated, and Uruha kissed him again, feeling more confident in it this time.

    "Please," he whispered against the blonde's lips.

    A moment, and then he felt Reita's hand on the back of his neck. The elder pulled him in hard and deep, kissing him in such a way that he lost his breath. Uruha clung to Reita, not wanting the blonde to change his mind, but when he felt the other strong hand grab his hip and pull them flush against each other, he knew he wouldn't have to worry. He gave himself to Reita, openly and honestly, wanting everything. He trusted himself to his friend's experienced hands, and it didn't take too long before he was at the gates of the true heaven.

    "God," he whimpered, breathless and on a high as the fallen angel laid pleasure on him. "This is better than anything heaven could ever give me..."

    Reita's touch was gentle but firm, guiding him and working him, so he experienced the most shattering waves of ecstasy. And, just like he had always dreamed, the fallen angel murmured in his ear, telling him the dirtiest things, making him shiver and moan with forbidden desire, but also telling him over and over the love he had as they joined and twined in a celebration of their passion. Everything about this rendezvous was better than Uruha ever could have imagined. It was an eternity of bliss he had never thought possible, being one with the man he had loved so long, hearing that voice and feeling that body...

    If it was forbidden and such a grievous sin, why did it feel so sacred?

    "I love you," Reita murmured to him when they lay finished in the dewy carpet of the abbey. Uruha was trying his best to regain his breath, but he was sure it would be years before he managed to catch it. His body felt light, flooded with bliss, and the touch Reita ran along him lit him on fire. "I love you, Uruha."

    "I love you, Reita. I want to be with you forever." Weakly, Uruha pulled himself to his lover's body, wanting to feel it still. "Take me with you."

    "I can't. You wouldn't be able to pass through the gate to where I am."

    "Why?"

    "Because you are still a holy being."

    "Even after this?"

    "You still have your grace, and you have no brand to grant you access to the deeper parts of hell. Only the highest of angels can enter such places. That keeps you from entering to where I reside. You could stay in other areas, but I will not leave you alone there."

    "So I have to fall," Uruha said softly.

    "Yes." Reita kissed him hard. Uruha could sense the tension in him at the memory of his own experience. "You have to fall to be with me."

    "Then I'll fall."

    "Don't, Uruha. It's torture. Many don't survive it, it is so brutal."

    "I'll have to, sooner or later. They'll find me out." Uruha ran his fingertips over Reita's strong back, shivering to feel the muscles. This magnificent body had taken him! There was no way to regret it, no matter what he faced. Every last second of it had been paradise. "Maybe they'll be kinder if I confess."

    "They will not. Uruha." Reita pulled back and looked at him seriously. "They will torture you. They will maim you. They will _rape_ you. They might tear your wings out."

    "I'll survive it. I have to be with you."

    Reita shook his head.

    "Will you still love me, even if I am disfigured?"

    "Passionately."

    "Then I'm not afraid." Uruha, now knowing what to do, kissed Reita deeply. "If it's what I have to pass through to be at your side for the rest of time, I will survive it."

    "Uru..."

    "Will you be waiting for me?"

    "Always."

    Uruha had lied. He was scared to death. But looking at Reita, and loving him this much, he would do it no matter what. He smiled, braver than he felt, and said, "Then I'll survive it and fall into your arms."

    Reita pulled him close again, and Uruha buried himself in the strong embrace, breathing in Reita's scent. He wanted to stay like this forever - being held, fresh from love, and feeling every bit of Reita's body and soul. It was all he had wanted these long years. It was all he had yearned for.

    "Hold me for as long as you can," Uruha whispered against Reita's forehead.

    "If I could take you straightaway I would."

    "I know you would."

    "Uruha."

    That was Kai's voice, breaking into the dreamlike world that they had made. Uruha strained to look over his shoulder, and he barely glimpsed his friend perched atop a great column. With a sigh, Uruha turned back to Reita, holding the fallen angel tightly.

    "Uruha,” the other angel said again.

    "I heard you, Kai."

    "What have you done?"

    He sounded angry, but not vengeful or raging. It was confused, grieving… disappointed. Uruha felt a twinge of guilt. Kai had worked so hard to keep him taken care of once Reita had been cast out. Kai had been his closest friend, his pillar. And he had turned his back on all of Kai’s love. His emotions wavering slightly, Uruha looked into Reita's eyes to steady himself. Feeling Reita's rough fingertips on his back centred him, and he was able to smile as he said, "I reached the highest of heavens and became one with the angel made to be my second part."

    "Uruha, how could you..."

    "He'll take you away," Reita murmured.

    "I know." Uruha raised a hand and lightly traced a fingertip over Reita's eyes and nose and lips, drinking in the sight of him like this, so close. More hesitantly, he outlined the black mark under his lover's eye, as if it was the last time he would touch Reita. In reality, it very well could be. "I don't want to go."

    "Come, Uruha. I'll take you away."

    "I don't want to go," Uruha repeated louder in response to Kai.

    "I've been sent to get you."

    They already knew. Uruha closed his eyes, and he felt Reita's lips touch his.

    "We can't make them wait any longer, Uruha. Get up and make yourself at least halfway decent."

    "Give him a minute," Reita growled now.

    "Shut up, or I'll stake you. This is your fault!"

    "Stop it." Uruha pushed himself up to sit, looking up at Kai sadly. "Please."

    His friend silenced, but he was stiff, and Uruha didn't dare push it. He pulled away from Reita unwillingly to make himself presentable. His hands were shaking a bit, and he fumbled a few times as he redressed himself.

    "Here." Reita's arms wrapped around him from behind, his hands sliding over Uruha's, helping him finish with the fine clothing. Uruha felt a kiss pressed against his neck, and he tilted his head, struggling to fight back the fear that this would be his absolute last time with Reita.

    "Reita, promise you'll be waiting," Uruha pleaded, hearing his voice tremble as much as his hands were.

    "I promise."

    Uruha turned and looked at his lover with a smile, only possible because of Reita’s words, before leaning into him for a kiss. "I'll come back. I love you too much to leave you now."

    "I love you too. Please... do anything you have to to save yourself, even if it means you won't come back to me."

    Uruha wouldn’t give him any such promise. He drank in the sight of the fallen angel one last time, and when he heard Kai land on the ground, he took a deep breath and turned to his friend.

    "I'm ready."

    Kai's face showed inner turmoil. He motioned Uruha over, and the angel slowly left Reita, slipping from his hands to approach Kai. The other angel grabbed his arm and held it tightly, glaring past him.

    "I hope you're proud of yourself," he spat.

    "I'm not."

    Uruha didn't turn around, though he wanted nothing more than to do so. If he looked back at Reita, he wouldn't be able to leave, even though it was what he needed to do. He simply stood, trembling, waiting for Kai to drag him off.

    "If he dies, it's your fault," Kai continued. Uruha watched his friend’s white wings fluff in anger.

    "You can rest assured I will kill myself for it."

    "No. You won't. You'll live and suffer every day. I'll make sure of it myself."

    Reita didn't respond. Without any warning, Kai leapt, and Uruha spread his wings as he was jerked into the air. His friend didn't release his arm, but kept a firm hold on him until they were far gone. Still Uruha faced forward, swallowing back tears of grief at being parted from Reita once again. But he shook it off. He'd go back. He'd be in Reita's arms again, and at that time, he would never have to leave again.

    Kai unceremoniously yanked him through the gates, into the marble-white hallways. Shame began piling in Uruha's heart, making his chest heavy, bringing tears to his eyes. He didn't regret it at all, but even so, somehow, he felt disgraced, unworthy. He couldn't even look up at the gleaming statues of choirs of cherubim, the lovely cascades of angels and wings all in glory to God. He didn't deserve it. He couldn’t face it.

    Eventually they stopped in front of the large, ornate white doors that Uruha had only passed before. The only thing that distracted him from the nauseating clenching in his stomach was that he could hear Kai breathing hard. Slowly, with difficulty, he raised his eyes to see his friend's head down, shoulders hunched, hair falling over his face. Another wave of guilt hit him for how Kai would probably suffer for his doings.

    "I tried so hard," Kai whispered suddenly.

    "I know. I appreciated it. I love you for it, my brother."

    "I tried to keep you safe. I tried to keep you happy."

    "You did well. It's not any of your fault, Kai. I'm so sorry."

    "Is he really worth it? Giving up everything here, giving up heaven, to be violated and stained by him?"

    "It isn't heaven when he isn't here. It never has been."

    Slowly, Kai straightened up and looked at him. His dark eyes were pleading, and Uruha swallowed back his tears again and told him, "It isn't your fault, Kai. I love him."

    Kai watched him for a bit before he replied, "He loves you too. He always did. I always saw that he loved you more than anything, so much that he even refused to refute it to save his own life."

    At that, Uruha couldn't keep the tears back, and he let out a choked sob, his vision blurring as the drops rushed down his cheeks.

    "That's why I've always done my best to protect you and keep you happy,” Kai continued, holding his hands. “He wasn't here to do it anymore, so I did, for him.”

    Uruha tried to say something, but all he managed was a pathetic whimper and more tears. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair, none of this was fair!

    "I worked hard, hoping that if I did everything right, you could forget what he did, so you could be happy without him. I tried so hard to ease your suffering so his love wouldn't be what you needed anymore. I tried so hard!"

    "I'm so sorry, Kai. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."

    Kai hugged him tightly now, and Uruha clung to him, burying his face in his friend’s shoulder, sobbing his apologies over and over again. He felt horrible now. Kai had given everything for him, and he was throwing it all away. But, Reita…

     “You knew, didn’t you?” he choked, realising what that look on Kai’s face, so long ago when Uruha had repeated what Reita told him of torture, had been for. “You knew what they did to him.”

     “I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you the truth. You’d have died from grief.”

    Uruha let out another choked, pathetic wail that was partially muffled in his friend’s strong shoulder. Kai’s strong arms were around him now, holding him protectively, as if he could fight off the inevitable conclusion Uruha was headed for.

    "Is it worth it to you?" Kai asked, his voice strangled. “To go through it too, to be with him?”

    "It's worth everything to me!"

    He felt Kai nod slowly. "Then never leave his side again. Don't let him leave you, don't let him make you live without him again. Not for anything. Don’t accept anything less than his total devotion."

    "I won't. Kai, Kai…"

    Another few minutes, where the only sound was Uruha trying to stifle his crying in Kai's shoulder, and his friend's ragged breathing. Then Kai pulled back and looked at him, a forced, teary smile stretching his mouth as he brushed the streaks on Uruha's face dry.

    "I can't go any further with you. This is the last time I'll see you."

    Uruha about broke down again, but Kai shushed him.

    "I know you can survive whatever they do to you. You'll make it through and go back to him."

    "Yes."

    "And when you're with him again, be happy and smile that smile you used to have. And don't you ever look back."

    "Kai..."

    "Not for me, not for anything. Promise me."

    "I promise," Uruha whimpered.

    A tear slipped down Kai's cheek, but he leaned forward and kissed Uruha's softly. "I love you, brother."

    "I love you, Kai. I'll miss you so much."

    Uruha returned the gesture, putting as much affection and gratitude into it as he could. The doors opened, pouring blinding light into the hallway, and Uruha flinched, looking to Kai again. His friend gave him a strained, but encouraging, smile and squeezed his hand.

    "I'm praying for you. Always."

    His chest was tight. Uruha voice was raw and broken, shattered by all the emotions he had experienced this night, as he whispered in return, "Until we meet again."

    Kai let his hand go and gave him a push. Uruha stumbled forward, but caught himself and, with a deep breath, entered the hall of pure light. He turned to look over his shoulder while the doors creaked shut, and saw one last glimpse of Kai, of his grieved face, before he was cut off forever.

    "Uruha."

    He turned back around as he heard the stern voice. All his body, mind, instinct screamed at him to renounce it and save himself. Reita's voice echoing in his head told him to save himself. But, with shuddering breath and shaking steps, he approached, squinting in the harsh light until his eyes adjusted. He stopped in front of the grand bench, craning his neck to look up at the judges above him. He had always looked up to these archangels and seraphim, been in awe of them, but now he was terrified of them. Now Uruha thought that he could begin to understand why Reita had been so upset when he'd said he would take a fall. These angels could kill him on the spot and not give him a chance to see Reita ever again.

    "Uruha, do you know why you have been summoned here?"

    "No, Your Honour."

    A pause, and the air felt heavy.

    "Yes, Your Honour," he whispered, feeling sick.

    "Explain yourself."

    "I..." Again his mind told him to lie, to blame it on Reita, to save himself. It took all his willpower to keep facing them and reply, still in a barely-audible voice, "I joined with Reita, the one you raised me knowing as my other half. We turned from two halves, long separated by lies and war, into one."

    "What is your reasoning for this heresy?"

    "Reasoning?" Beyond the nausea was anger and rebellion. He had been so lied to! "You were the ones that told us from when we were barely born from Our Mother that we were meant to be together, that we would always be together, that we were always meant to be at each other's sides, never complete without the other! Why do you question my longing to be reunited with him, and be complete?"

    "Watch your tongue."

    He trembled at the thunderous response, head falling down from the pressure. He could barely breathe. He used a few moments to gather himself before he forced himself to look up again.

    "You ask why I made love with him?" he asked, heart pounding with fear, but swelling with emotions. "Why I make love to my other half? Why would I, but that I love him?"

    "Do not profane that holy word by using it to describe your sinful sodomy. You do not love him. You lusted for his body."

    "I love him! His smile, his voice, his touch, his soul! I always have, from the first moment I met him. How could children lust? The lust I feel for him is not rooted in shallow carnal sin, but for the entire being I grew up loving and having at my side, dreaming of being with every moment! If I were to never join with him again, but just be near him and hear him speak my name, I would be happy! That is not lust and desire. That is love!"

    "You do not know the pit you are sliding into. Renounce this sinful thinking, and repent. Do not let that betrayer, who killed our brethren, who stepped on you, who violated you with his filthy body, convince you to follow his path!"

    "I love him!" Uruha screamed, ignoring the tears that fell. His head was ringing, aching so much he felt it would burst. He wouldn't give into them or their pressure. He had submitted to it, blissfully unaware, for too long. No more. "I love him, and I will not renounce him! I will not regret the actions we did! It was no sin, not when it felt so holy and natural!"

    "Blasphemer!"

    "Call me what you want! I will never lie about my feelings for him, and you will not bully me into it!"

    "Well, let's see if we can't change your mind."

    "Do what pleases you. You won't convince me that I've done anything wrong!"

    Something struck him across the face, and he crashed to the ground, screaming in pain as he felt bones in one wing fracture under the impact. Shivering in pain, he stared defiantly up at the guards who stood above him.

    "Do your worst," he spat. "You could tear my heart out, and it would still beat for him!"

    "Don't tempt us to try it. Take him away. Show him the path the sins he's committed will take him and bring him back to God’s forgiveness."

    Uruha didn't resist as they grabbed him and hauled him away, his injured wing trailing behind him. He was quaking as he limped along, but he wouldn't let himself give in. Reita had endured it, so he would too. If he didn't, he had no right to be with the one he loved.

    "Beautiful one, isn't he?" one guard’s voice sneered.

    "One of the favourites."

    He was pushed into a cell, and he heard the door shut. Slowly he turned around and saw the guards leering at him, running their eyes over his body.

    "Wonder what he sounds like."

    "You spread your legs for a fallen angel, hm? Why don't you show us what you gave to him?"

    "Leave me,” Uruha retorted, sounding stronger than he felt.

    "Don't get so haughty." One grabbed him and smashed him against a wall. He yelped as he felt more fractures crunch through his bones, panting vainly as the hand tightened around his throat. "You can make this easy on yourself."

    "Nothing will be easier than ignoring your pathetic bodies," he replied, glaring and trying to struggle.

    "You think so, huh? What's more pathetic than a fallen angel?"

    "Reita is infinitely prouder and more glorious than grovellers like you could even hope to be."

    "You're cute, you know." The other one approached now, running a hand down his body. "Especially when you're pretending to be virtuous."

    The hand grabbed between his legs now, and Uruha kicked out, doing his best to fight back when he couldn't breathe.

    "Just relax, pretty one. It's over once you realise your sins. Or if you relax, you’ll just enjoy a bit more sin before you’re put on the slaughtering block."

    Gathering everything he could, Uruha spat right into his dominator's face. The jeering expression disappeared immediately, and rage took its place. He was whipped around and slammed face-first into the adjoining wall, and he cried out, tasting blood. They pushed his face down the wall, scraping his skin raw, until he was almost bent in half.

    "Come hold him here for me. I get to whip his sorry ass into place first."

    "Don't ruin him too much, I want a turn."

    Bitterness filled him as he felt the hands change and his garments ripped. He had given his virginity to Reita, at the very least, but he would still be ruined for the one he loved. Even so, he still tried to fight, and when he felt the abuse about to start, he swallowed hard and repeated himself again before he closed himself off to praying to whatever power would hear him.

    "Do your worst."

 


	6. Chapter 6

    "How long do you think they'll keep him?"

    "I don't know. They know he wants to come back to you, though. They could well hold him forever, or kill him."

    Reita shook his head, pacing the nave of the abbey again. He hadn't left, not for a moment, once Uruha and Kai had left. He had worn the once-vibrant plush grass away into clear paths from nervous pacing, even to the point where the dark earth showed through. Months of Earth time were nothing to angels, not usually, but every moment without Uruha, and knowing that his lover was either in danger or suffering, seemed to last years.

    "Don't ignore that possibility, Reita," Aoi said, watching him from where he stood leaning a column. "To punish him and you, that's the most logical thing they would do."

    "They can't. They can't kill him. He's a favourite. He's beloved. They wouldn't kill him." Reita said it more to comfort himself than to respond to Aoi. He had to believe it, or he would despair.

    "Then they'll hold him for the rest of eternity, and there's no escape from those dungeons."

    "Not if I charge in and get him myself." Though he knew that was useless too. If they knew he was coming, they would kill Uruha without hesitation, just to spite him and hell.

    "And if he hasn't been banned? He can't come with you then."

    "Then I'll find somewhere for us to be together!"

    Aoi sighed, running a hand through his hair. Reita looked away from him, returning to his pacing, half-regretting his frustrated shouting. He knew Aoi wouldn’t blame him, or be angry at him for it, but he still felt the guilt of yelling at his best friend. He was already being ungrateful about everything Aoi had done for him, he knew that was what Aoi was thinking, and he knew it himself.

    It was a long time before Aoi spoke again, so long that Reita became afraid that Aoi would just give him the cold shoulder. But then the other said, "I'll see if I can find some information for you."

    "Thank you."

    "I'll send Ruki as well. He slips into higher ranks easily."

    "Don't make him prostitute himself out, Aoi."

    "I'll return as soon as I can. Don't do anything foolish, Reita."

    "Thank you," he repeated, feeling relief at his friend offering to help him.

    Aoi simply nodded, stretched his wings, and took off, disappearing in a matter of seconds. Reita forced himself to stand still, to take a few breaths and calm himself. Of course his torture had been long, there was no such thing as a short period of torture. But he couldn't bear the idea of Uruha having to endure it at all, let alone as long or longer than he had.

    He heard the beat of wings on the air, and his head snapped back to look for who it might be. A white-winged angel, but not Uruha, and they were well-covered so he couldn't see who it was. They landed and strode towards him quickly, and he readied himself to fight. Then they uncovered their face, and he recognised Kai, who looked a bit winded and incredibly upset. Remembering Kai's words to him at their last meeting, he steeled himself further.

    "I'm not here to fight you," Kai told him as if knowing his thoughts, stopping just out of reach. His breath was short, voice low and urgent. "No one knows I'm here, I hope. Don't say my name."

    "What are you here for?" Reita asked, not letting his guard down.

    "He's still alive."

    Only a bit of relief seeped into Reita at that, because that fact only meant he was still suffering. "Is he?"

    "They're trying to get him to renounce you, or just keep him away from you as punishment. If you wanted to sully him, you certainly did so, but you can't claim him for yourself."

    "So he still has his grace, then?"

    "As far as I know."

    "So why are you here?"

    "Because I can't stand doing nothing while I swear I can hear him screaming." His face darkened, and Reita realised that the other angel's frame was exhausted, far from ready to fight. Stress was lining Kai’s expression, from his brow even down his tensed neck, sinking into his face. He looked like he hadn’t slept in some time. His voice was a bit hoarse as he continued, "I can't stop hearing it, imagining what they're doing to him."

    "How do you know he's still alive? What they want from him?"

    "I know because I've been trying to get him free, and I keep getting denied. They wouldn’t do that if he were dead, they’d tell me so. They’re doing this because they know he's determined to fall to be with you. Because they know you're waiting for it."

    "Then what do you want from me?"

    "Renounce him."

    "Absolutely not," Reita snapped, his wings flaring at the suggestion.

    "Not permanently. Temporarily. He'll still stay loyal to you. Maybe thinking that he'll suffer having to be near you without you loving him, they'll let him go."

    "And if they don't?" He was growling. He didn't like the idea at all. He didn't want to make Uruha doubt him.

    "Then come get him."

    Reita shook his head. "I don't trust you. You'd serve yourself over me."

    "I'm risking my life coming to you with this information. If they find out I've told you anything about him, I will be executed, if not exiled. Uruha is my brother, Reita, and you are too."

    "I'm just a sinner, a fallen angel to you. A traitor. You've wished me dead all these years and you’ve hardly been anything but cold the last two times I’ve seen you, so why now do you suddenly try to help me?"

    "Because Uruha is dying and I won't stand idly by and let it happen when there's any chance at all I could do something to free him, to heaven or to hell. Either way, he could be with you, and he will smile and be happy again. I have had to see him suffer his loneliness all these years without you. I have had to watch him drown. If you don't think I'd help you, don't you at least think I'd help him?"

    Reita looked at Kai seriously, reading his eyes. He sounded desperate, looked desperate and tired, like he was at the end. There was nothing to his entire being that suggested he was trying to make any kind of trap. It seemed he didn’t have the energy for it.

    "We fought each other, Reita, and my heart bled for it.” Kai’s dark eyes gazed at him, lit with a low burn that was so similar to the light of death Reita had seen in so many others. “We were such close friends, don’t you remember? I had to pretend to hate you in hopes it would become real, because I hurt so badly to have you and my other friends, my brothers, as my enemies. I had to try, and try to help Uruha move on as well. I had to tell myself it was your fault, because I didn't know how else to cope and still be there to protect him. Someone had to be there for him! He wouldn't have survived, he was so lost without you."

    He still watched the other for a bit, looking over every little bit of the other to seek out any sort of reason to resist, before he sighed and asked, feeling weary, "How do we convince them?"

    Relief lightened Kai's expression. "Thank you. You can't stay here. They know the attachment you two have to it."

    "Is that all?"

    "You know there's a mission to the head cathedral, right?"

    "Of course."

    "Stroll in on them. I'm certain one will bring it up if they see you. Lie to them. Lie as hard as you can. Say you don't love him. Say you did it to ruin him. I don't care what you say, just lie and make them believe it. They should report it on their return.”

    "And then?"

    "We pray they do as I think they will."

    "What makes you think they'll act that way?"

    "How they've treated others. I'm a general in the armies, Reita, just as you were. I've been at my share of hearings. At executions."

    The blonde regarded Kai for a moment, hearing the dull acceptance in his tone, before he asked quietly, "And what if they capture you and torture you for information?"

    "I lie. I’m more than capable of it."

    "And if they decide you aren't to stay?"

    "They'll likely kill me and throw my dead body from heaven. I will be nothing to worry about."

    "Why would they kill you? They'll just exile you."

    "They wouldn't want someone with my knowledge of the armies and defences falling into hell's hands."

    "So you face death calmly?"

    "Not calmly, but yes, I expect it."

    Slowly, Reita took a step forward and drew Kai in. The other jumped, but didn't resist, as Reita pulled him until they were flush against each other. He could feel Kai’s heart beating against his own, they were so close. The pace he felt was quick and uneven, the rhythm of exhaustion and strain. He suddenly felt a wave of grief for this angel, who he had always known to be so strong and bright, who seemed to now be on the edge of breakdown. Despite his suspicions and slight resentment for taking Uruha in the first place, he was grateful to Kai for everything he had done for Uruha. He owed Kai so much just for that. Even now, Kai was, as he said, certainly risking his life to try to save Uruha.

    "When they execute a traitor quietly," he murmured into Kai's ear, making the decision, "they do it with poison. It is slow enough for you to see your way down, when they throw you to leave you for dead. Slow enough that you feel yourself hit the ground. Fall here. I'll come and save you."

    "Reita..."

    "Understand?"

    "Yes." He heard a slight gulp, felt it tense Kai’s jaw. "Do you?"

    "If he is subjected to hearing it, and they do not free him, I will come after you myself."

    "Only if you take him with you." Kai pulled away and stood back, covering himself again. "I hope for the best. For you and for him."

    Reita, despite part of himself, crossed himself in salute. "Thank you."

    "No need. I'm sure I'll be seeing you soon."

    Kai saluted in return, and then took off without another word, soaring into the faintest cloud above and disappearing into the smoky white. Reita sighed and let his gaze fall to the abbey, feeling resistance to leaving. But Kai had been too earnest and too frightened to not believe. He needed to go and pray that Uruha wouldn't turn from him. Taking a few last long looks, Reita took off and returned to hell. The entire way back, his mind was racing, trying to think of what he could do to make it the most convincing. Words alone wouldn’t be enough. He needed something more, something terrible…

    When he landed in front of the mansion, he knew what was necessary. He cringed a bit to think of it, but he would do anything he had to in order to free Uruha. He strode in and found Ruki in the front hall. The demon spun, eyes wide, at the sound of his footsteps.

    "Rei! Why are you back? Aoi said you weren't leaving the abbey."

    "Plans have changed. Where is he?"

    "He's left to try to get word of Uruha."

    "Can you call him back?"

    "I'll try."

    Reita held back from continuing on to give Ruki the time to try to reach Aoi. It felt like it had been hours before the blue eyes opened.

    "I think I got him."

    "It's good enough. Thank you, Ru."

    "What's going on?"

    "I need your help."

    "Anything."

    Despite the anxiety that was almost crippling him, Reita couldn't help but chuckle a bit. "Too willing a demon."

    "You're not too far off yourself you know. And you have been good to me, I can pay it back. So tell me. What can I do?"

    He looked down into Ruki's earnest face, to the bright blue eyes, and gently cupped his hands around Ruki's cheeks. He hated what he said. But it was necessary, absolutely so.

    "I need Aoi to give you up."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW.

    "You're sure?"

    "I'm sure. Aoi's confirmed it." Reita ran a hand through Ruki's glossy dark hair. "I can't thank him enough for cooperating. I know he hasn't been happy about it at all."

    "Oh, he's not as upset as you think." Ruki glanced up at him, still running his lips back and forth. "Besides, if it all works out, he doesn't have to share me much anymore."

    "Not at all."

    "Don't say that. We could do a foursome sometimes."

    Reita shook his head and then bit his lip as Ruki skilfully began using his tongue. "Fuck..."

    "And I'm glad to know I can still get you to react like that."

    He let his hand run along Ruki's sleek, barely-covered body, appreciating its shape and smooth skin. He wouldn't lie that Ruki had been an absolute pleasure all these many years, in more than just bed. He had become very fond of the demon, with and without all his amenities. A part of him would be a bit sad to give him up.

    "How have you felt though?" the blonde asked, pausing as his fingers reached the jagged, faded pale scars between Ruki's shoulders. "I haven't been treating you very well..."

    "It's what I'm built for."

    "And I've taken you away from Aoi. I know you care for him a lot."

    Ruki glanced up at him for a moment. "You're a friend, Reita."

    "Don't you feel angry towards me at all?"

    "Not really."

    "Ru..."

    "I don't, Reita. This is not Aoi telling me what to think or feel. You know he's almost never done that to me. I could hate his guts out and want to kill him, and he wouldn't give a damn that those were my feelings as long as I was loyal."

    "Why aren’t you angry at me?"

    "Because you've been hurting longer and more than I have in offering myself to you."

    "You're ridiculous." He couldn't help but feel guilty, incredibly and painfully guilty.

    "You're not the first to tell me so." Ruki put a finger up to Reita's lips when he tried to respond. "No more. You're killing my mood."

    "Sorry."

    With a smile, Ruki went back to work, teasing him lightly and deliciously, until the guilt was almost completely out of mind, and he was relaxing in the demon's knowing hands.

    "That's good, baby," he murmured and leaned his head back on the column he was resting against. "So good."

    "You're so dirty, doing it in here. But it's turning me on even more, honestly." Ruki was humming against the sound of the mass that was happening just beyond the pulpitum they were resting on. "They could have hours and hours of mass and I'd ride you the whole time."

    "I know you would, filthy fuck."

    Ruki laughed softly and went down on him, causing Reita's fingers to clench on skin. He settled in to watch the mass while Ruki blew and stroked him. He had to be natural and convincing. So did everything, down to his very pulse and breath and thoughts. He could do that. And he knew Ruki would strengthen him for it.

    "Those tits are so cute," he said absentmindedly, his eyes drifting to the curves Ruki had worked hard to develop just for the occasion.

    "I should have them out more."

    "Yes you should." He hummed in satisfaction, letting out sighs or slight grunts whenever Ruki did something especially good. "Mm, a titty fuck with those..."

    "Would you like one?" Ruki asked, coming off and letting his saliva hang from his lips. His hand was moving slowly back and forth, keeping Reita feeling warm.

    "It might be hot."

    "Very well then." Ruki pressed up against him, squished the tiny breasts against Reita, and began rocking himself back and forth. He kept staring into Reita's eyes with a hungry gaze, eyes flashing when the angel groaned.

    "Fuck, that's really nice... especially that chain."

    "It's in perfect place, isn't it?" Ruki purred, pushing a bit harder and forcing Reita into the light chain that ran down his cleavage to where it split low on his hips and wrapped around. "That must feel so good to you."

    "Really fucking good." He twined his fingers into Ruki's hair again, hungrily watching the demon service him. "You little whore."

    "All yours," was the velvety reply.

    "When they come, go back to sucking okay? It's so lewd and sexy."

    "In that case..."

    Ruki rocked a few more times, then bent his head and slid his mouth back on, body rippling and straightening out. Reita sensed them before they entered, just as Ruki had seemed to. He thought he saw a slight quiver in Ruki's frame, so he interrupted the service and pulled Ruki up, kissed him deeply to comfort him. Ruki himself wasn't afraid of pretty much anything, Reita knew that. But there was no way to completely smother instinct.

    "You there!"

    "You'll be fine," Reita murmured against Ruki's mouth, licking against the other's tongue once more. "You're a damn sexy bitch."

    Ruki laughed a bit, then turned to look down at the angry voice that was shouting once again.

    "Yes, you!"

    Reita slowly followed Ruki's gaze to the group of higher angels that were just below them, before the choir screen. He assumed that they had meant to enter the choir, but had stopped on seeing them. Good. He couldn't have asked for anything better.

    "Well hello," Reita replied smoothly, letting a hand run down Ruki's shoulder and around to play with one of his breasts. Ruki whined happily and began licking his ear. "Would you leave? I was in the middle of something."

    "How dare you profane this holy house!"

    "Sinners are welcome in the house of God too." Reita turned Ruki to face him. "Even sinners like us."

    "You bastard...!"

    "If you'll excuse me, I was rather occupied." He kissed Ruki again, growling a bit when the demon began stroking him.

    "Aren't you Reita? Who was considered one of the most virtuous?"

    Reita pulled back and exhaled in slight exasperation, then told Ruki, "You know what I like."

    "Yes master," was the coy reply, and the demon settled into his lap, gazing down at the party of angels below as he began his work once more.

    "I am who you say," Reita replied, casually stretching his wings and adjusting his position to accommodate Ruki best.

    "He is that angel no longer," one of the older angels said viciously. "He is only trash."

    "I'd beg to differ, but your opinion doesn't much matter." He combed Ruki's hair gently, holding back a groan as the demon teased him deep. "You must be busy, and I'm not hurting anyone. Just go on with your business and ignore us, like you always do. We'll stay right here."

    "You will stop that disgusting display immediately!"

    A couple of the younger-looking angels seemed to be staring at Ruki. Reita couldn't blame them, especially not when Ruki was playing his part. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the demon's smirk as he let Reita out and instead traced with the tip of his tongue. Reita did groan a bit, his eyes closing.

    "I command you to stop!" was the shout when Reita made no movement to go.

    "You are not my commanding officer, nor my leader, nor my Lord," he retorted coolly. "I will not stop at your word. We're hurting no one."

    "Master," Ruki crooned, resting Reita against his lower lip. "Can I ride?"

    "Of course you can, you beautiful slut." Reita welcomed the kiss Ruki arched up to give, and smiled as he watched the demon turn and adjust himself.

    "Stop!"

    "Why?" Reita asked, running a hand up and down Ruki's smooth back, smirking as he watched the angels' expressions. Some – mostly the older ones - were angry and scandalized, while some strained with holding back their lust. Of course. Ruki was hot as hell. Eventually even the strongest angel would give in to this demon. He hissed, gritting his teeth as Ruki sank onto him. Now the struggle was very real on those poor younger angels' faces. He could almost see the sight of Ruki's hips sliding back and forth on him reflected in their eyes.

    "You violate God's house, doing these immoral carnal acts!"

    "Yes, I'm very well aware of that." Reita snickered despite himself, fighting back the will to thrust. He needed to be collected, no matter how hard it was. "Is that all you have to say?"

    "Didn't you rape Uruha?"

    "Now that you mention it, I do recall doing that some time ago. Though I wouldn't say it was rape. He was begging for it with legs spread wide. And he was absolutely delicious. Taking the virginity of one of the favourites was an absolute pleasure."

    "He said you're in love with him!" one of the younger ones burst out, eyes very fixed on Ruki's moving, undulating hips. "During the trial!"

    "Hush, child."

    "And he's in love with you!"

    "Quiet!"

    "Did he say so?" Reita asked, thanking whatever was steeling him that his heart hadn't thudded or ached, or reflected its pain in his expression. Ruki smiled at him, moving his hips to only take the very end in, reassuring him things were fine. Reita let out a sigh and continued, "Poor kid. He was always naive."

    "You violated him and he has stood trial for your crimes! He is being tortured because of you."

    "So heaven isn't perfect then, or as forgiving as it sings. Big surprise. Besides, how should they put me on trial? I'm not one of their subjects anymore. Very, very happily so, by the way. This reward..." He slapped Ruki's ass hard and revelled in the groan the demon let out before moving a bit faster. "... is far worth it."

    "You disgusting pig!"

    "But anyway, if it was rape, why should Uruha be on trial? It's not his fault if I pin him down and fuck him so hard I scar him inside. Oh wait," he added as they all flinched at his profanity. "It's because you and your judges don't give a shit. If angels aren't all your minions and do exactly as you say, they're worthless. It's too bad the poor kid thinks he's in love with me. I had my fun with him. I'm no longer interested. He's yours now. So, go along." He waved a hand at them. "Go. Ruki and I will finish eventually, then we'll leave. No reason to get yourself all uptight. It just hurts you, when something gets in."

    "Oh, master," Ruki moaned, squeezing him tightly. Reita growled slightly in satisfaction, holding Ruki's hips tightly and in place on him. "Dirty master... what do you want?"

    "Fuck yourself well, sweetheart. Go ahead and grind away."

    The demon did so, purring happily as he tilted his head back. Reita glanced back down to see that they hadn't moved.

    "What? I have nothing more to discuss with you. Though, if you'd like to fight, I'll defeat each one of you without needing to take my cock out of this lovely pussy."

    "Uruha was your other half, yet you would so easily put him aside...!"

    "Yes, it was very easy to move on.” Lying was hard. But Reita knew that he had to do as Kai said and lie, lie, lie, no matter how much it hurt, and he couldn’t let them know the knife was twisting. “It's true that I wanted him. I wanted to sink into his ass and have his pretty legs spread wide for me. I wanted to see his face and hear his voice as I fucked him. I wanted his virginity. And I took it. Now it's gone, and I have no more interest. He was a beautiful sight, but why should I want an inexperienced naive angel when I have demons falling at my feet to pleasure me and know just how to do it?" He slapped Ruki's ass again, needing distraction. "All fours."

    Ruki obeyed, and Reita moved to kneel behind the demon. Ignoring the stares that, for some reason, were still fixed on them, he said loud enough for them to hear, "Your ass looks delicious."

    "Take what you want," Ruki told him, wiggling his hips.

    He glanced back down to the choir as he kneaded one side of Ruki's rear lightly. Irked, he asked, "Is there a reason you continue to stare? Do you want to see how good it is in hell that badly?"

    "Leave this holy place!"

    "Oh, I see." He turned back to Ruki and pushed his thumb in. Ruki mewled loudly, thrusting his hips back. "Then I'll certainly show you."

    "Do not -"

    Reita had already pulled his hand back, and as soon as the words left the lead angel's lips he thrust carelessly into Ruki, praying it wasn't hurting too badly. The slender demon shuddered, moaning loudly and breathlessly, pure pornography in life.

    "Fuck... so big, master... mm, so big! Give it to me!"

    "How dare you engage in sodomy in a house of God!" a higher angel bellowed at him.

    "How dare I?" Reita asked, one hand on Ruki's hips to hold him as he moved, the other running across his back. "Because God and his chosen sodomized me as well. It's only fair if I defile his house like he had me defiled. It’s only fair if I defiled one of the favourite of all his angels. That's what I think of God. Fuck him."

    "Shit!" Ruki yelped as Reita moved harder and faster. "Fuck yeah!"

    "Leave immediately!"

    "You're welcome to make me. Otherwise, just enjoy the show." His irritation was building. He didn't want to take it out on Ruki again, but right now... he grabbed a fistful of the demon's hair and yanked on it, snapping Ruki’s head back. Collected was out the window. He’d quite willingly just upset them instead.

    "Fuck, more, master!" Ruki whimpered, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. "Fuck me fuck me fuck me...!"

    A flash in the corner of his eye, and he released Ruki's hip in time to draw his sword and counter the angel that had leapt. Reita glared him down, twisting Ruki's hair, as he pushed the other back.

    "Fuck off," he said, a bit more snappishly than he probably should have. "Or I will cut you down. I don't have patience with those that seek to interrupt my pleasure."

    "Don't stop," Ruki breathed. "It's so hot to see you kill, master."

    "You think so, bitch?" Reita asked, not taking his eyes from his opponent.

    "Yes. Kill them while you screw me."

    "Whatever you want, baby." Reita expertly twisted his sword, ripping the other's from his grasp, and without hesitation stabbed the blade deep into his shoulder. As the angel gagged and writhed, and the others shouted, Reita growled, narrowing his eyes, "Fuck off. Go tell that poor little slut I don't love him. Do everyone a favour. It opens up one more cell for you lot to torture someone 'more deserving'."

    He turned his blade a bit, giving his victim more pain, before he grabbed the front of the robes. Holding his victim in place, he pierced the wing with his sword and revelled in the choking and bloody screams before letting go. As the body fell, the blade pulled  through the muscle and bone of the wing, ripping it almost in two. Ruki sighed as the other angels hurried to catch their companion, who screamed and writhed in agony in their arms.

    "You didn't kill him."

    "Sorry, baby. I will though, if they try again." Reita grasped Ruki's hair again and pulled on it as he continued his rough, quick thrusts. He let himself growl, just a bit. It was amazing, after all. "How's this?"

    "So good, so good..."

    "You heretic!"

    Another one was coming, sword raised. Without hesitation, Reita stabbed straight into them, ducking his head to avoid their blade as they dropped it.

    “You think playing fair will bring you victory?” he asked, slowly jerking his sword up and down, letting it hew through the other’s chest and ribs. The angel, still very young, was gasping and coughing blood, trembling hard. He added with a bit of scorn, “So inexperienced. So overzealous. So eager to die for no reason at all.”

    “Release him immediately!”

    Their anguished cries were like sugar to him. He said calmly, “As you wish.” He jerked harder and quickly twisted his blade, flipping it upside-down. He heard their exclamation, but it was too late. The sharp edge sliced up through the brutal wound Reita had already inflicted, and it cleanly split the heart in two. There was a burst of crimson, and the body immediately went limp. The white wings slowly lowered, and with the gravity, the body slid off and fell, crashed to the ground on top of his earlier companion. Blood seeped across the pale grey floor in a slow flood as the injured writhed and screamed and coughed in agony, further crushed by his dead brother.

    “How was that, Ru?”

    “Perfect.” Ruki shook his hips and laughed, head leaning back as Reita yanked his hair. “So fucking sexy…”

    “You damned _demon!_ ” came a screech from below them.

    "Thank you." Reita took a mocking half-bow. "Anything else? Or should I finish them off for you? I'm happy to do the favour."

    "You will receive punishment!" came the angry reply. Returning his gaze, he saw several angels trying to heft the wounded one up. The eldest, Reita judged, was glaring and pointing at him condemningly. "You will!"

    "Good luck," Reita replied with a sneer. "To your horrid God."

    "Let's leave. We will come cleanse this sacred place once our companion is cared for." And then the angels were gone in a flurry of white wings and howls of pain and vengeance.

    "Nice job." Ruki sounded very smug. He had every reason to be. He’d more or less helped kill two holy beings.

    "Thanks baby." Reita waited until he was sure they were gone before he leaned over and kissed the demon's shoulder. The mass continued. There had been no hesitation from the humans, no notice of their presence or of the angels'. Another good thing, though Reita might have liked for there to be upset. Wrapping one arm around Ruki's waist, the angel murmured, "Let's finish here. I want to go home."

    When they arrived back at the mansion, Reita carrying Ruki in his arms, Aoi was in the front to greet them. Reita handed Ruki over and watched the demon wrap himself around Aoi, who gently moved his hands to support the tiny lithe body.

    "How was it?" Aoi asked as Ruki laid his head on a shoulder. In response, Reita drew his blade and showed Aoi the blood drying on the shining breadth. The darker one took a breath and smiled a bit wickedly as he said, "Nice job. Did you kill him?"

    "One, yes. The other, I'll be surprised if he wasn't dead by the time they got him back to heaven." Reita put his hand on his own chest, in the place where he had pierced the first one. "Stabbed and twisted. In the wing as well."

    "Arriving at heaven and staining the ground with blood just as he dies." Aoi's grin was sinister and yet proud. "You are fearsome, Reita."

    "They pissed me off. Ruki," he said, mind switching when the pale scars, which seemed very noticeable in the darker light, caught his eye once more. "Are you okay?"

    "Oh yeah." Ruki looked back with a wide smile. "Hot as fuck, Rei."

    He let out a small sigh of relief. "Good..."

    "I'll take him now, for awhile,” Aoi said, meeting Reita’s eyes. “If it's alright."

    "Go ahead."

    Aoi kissed Ruki's forehead and turned, carrying him away. Ruki winked at him from over Aoi's shoulder, and Reita let himself smile a bit to see it before he left the foyer and climbed up to his own chambers. He only took the time to hang his sword before he threw himself onto his bed and curled up, taking deep breaths to relax himself.

    The only things he could hope for were that they would release Uruha, in some way or another, and that Uruha wouldn't hate him for this act. What they did with him was out of Reita's control. Though telling himself those things over and over should have helped him, it didn't at all. He was still anxious, and waiting wouldn't make it any easier to take.


	8. Chapter 8

    "I'm okay, I'm okay," Ruki protested as Aoi lowered him into the tub.

    "Quiet, just let me."

    Ruki stuck out his tongue and settled down into the hot water, not wanting to admit it felt incredibly good. Aoi was quiet, just sitting beside the tub as Ruki soaked, and the demon didn't bother to engage for a while. He simply tried to relax in this repeat of Aoi’s care the last time Reita had had control of him, until he looked over and saw Aoi's face. In all the many times he had seen his master’s face over the last few weeks or however long he'd been handed over to Reita, it hadn't been hard to find the shadow in Aoi's face and haunting his eyes. But now it stood out even more, for some reason. Ruki felt a small chill run through him as he saw it.

    "Aoi -"

    "I can tell your body is aching," the angel interrupted, looking away. "He isn't as brutal with you as he was before. But it's enough, and it builds up. And you haven't been energetic lately, even with me. So I'm just trying to take care of you. I don't like seeing you like this. You're usually an overenthusiastic perky little bitch."

    "Are you jealous?" the demon asked, hearing a change in the angel's tone.

    There was quiet for a few moments, Aoi still staring away. Then he replied gruffly, "Yes."

    "I'm sorry." Ruki gently turned him back and into a kiss. With that affection, he sensed some of the stiffness melt out of Aoi. When he parted from his master's lips, he gazed up into the black eyes and continued, "You didn't have to give me to him. You could have said no and kept me to yourself."

    "I know. But Reita's my friend, I want to help him be happy. And if letting him be your master for some time will get him what he needs, then I can do that."

    "You're jealous though."

    "Yes. You're mine."

    "You'll have me back soon. And I'll be very happy to be curled up in your bed again."

    "So you miss me?"

    "Very much." Ruki lightly traced a fingertip over Aoi's lips, not breaking gaze. "You are the one that broke me and captivated me."

    "That's all, huh."

    The demon planted another soft, loving kiss before he leaned back, sliding down into the water until it was lapping at his chin. Aoi still watched him solemnly, some of his glossy black hair trailing into the bath and floating in tendrils on the surface of the water. Choosing his words carefully, Ruki said, "If it was only because you had me on a leash, I would have chewed through it and run away by now."

    "Oh?"

    He knew Aoi didn't doubt him. The angel just wanted to hear the words. Ruki didn't blame him. He looked back into Aoi's face and spoke again, being slightly less cautious. "I want to be here. Truly, I want to be here. I'm loyal to you, and I don't have any intention of changing where my loyalties lie."

    Aoi looked over him a few times, and Ruki felt a small smile curl his mouth as the possessive gaze took in every inch of his body.

    "Don't worry," he added, his voice bringing Aoi's eyes back up. "Even though I'm in Reita's hands now, you're the one that is my master. I'll come straight back to you and lie at your feet again. You don't even need to tell me to. I'll do it on my own."

    The angel nodded, slowly a few times, and then as normal before he closed his eyes. Ruki followed suit and instead focused his mind on relaxing his muscles, sore from rough sex and handling and the instinctive fear that had frozen his muscles at the sight of angels. He shivered again at the thought of them, how the elders had regarded him. If it hadn't been for Reita's hands, Ruki was sure his body would have curled or collapsed.

    "Ru."

    Aoi's voice startled him, making him jump and then look for support. The fallen angel was watching him, concern lining his brow.

    "Are you okay? You’re shaking."

    "Fine. Fine. Just... unpleasant thoughts."

    The angel tucked some of Ruki's hair back, then leaned in and placed a light kiss on his neck. Ruki shivered again, in pleasure this time, and said, "That's better."

    "No unpleasant thoughts. Rest."

    "Yes Aoi." The angel's lips were still against his neck - an intimate and maybe possessive, but also somewhat tender, show of affection. Ruki shifted a bit and closed his eyes, enjoying the soft caress of Aoi's breath on his skin. "Whatever you say."

    Aoi stayed there, right against him, until the water lost its warmth. Then he lifted Ruki out, dried him, and took him to their bed and laid him down gently. Before Ruki could say anything, Aoi slipped in by him and had a hand on his back.

    "You can stay here for a bit before you go back to him."

    "If it's okay."

    "Of course it is. I insist."

    "Your insistence isn't the one I obey above any other right now."

    A small growl, at which the demon couldn't help but smile a bit. It might be dangerous to tease Aoi like that, but he liked seeing his master's possessiveness and envy. It made his feelings stronger to see that he was truly wanted.

    "You're such a prick," Aoi muttered, his hand now running softly along Ruki's back.

    "I'm sorry."

    No reply. Instead Aoi's gaze was back on his body, hands tracing every line and curve. Ruki settled in and let his eyes slide shut, visualising the angel's fingers as they ran along him. Eventually the touch was running along the same spots, and peering up at Aoi's face, Ruki found his gaze concentrated on the spot he was caressing.

    "Reita was paying lots of attention to those too," Ruki said quietly.

    Black eyes flickered to him, then back to his skin. "You still have nightmares."

    "I know I do."

    "I wish I had found you sooner."

    "I do too. But it's the past now. It can't be changed." No matter how much he wanted it, there was no changing. It was the same fact that was torturing Reita now, too.

    Aoi said nothing in response, simply kept running his light touch over them. Ruki was about to let himself drift off, but then Aoi's touch moved, and he felt warm wet tracing along the marks. He wasn't able to keep back a soft sighing moan at the feel, at the possessiveness of the gesture. Aoi repeated it until Ruki had stopped shivering at the attentions before he lay back down, pulled the demon's body close, and folded one black wing over him.

    "Sleep for a bit. Here. With me."

    Ruki didn't know how to put the gratitude for the affections and comfort Aoi had just given to him in words, so he simply cuddled a bit closer and closed his eyes to rest before he would have to return to his newer role. Staying tucked under Aoi's wing, in the place he knew and felt most comfortable, was more healing than hot baths could ever be.

    Reita was quiet and withdrawn the next little while, and Ruki couldn't blame him. He knew his friend was drained and exhausted from everything he was holding in. He would go out just to cover his duties and check on his soldiers before he'd return and stay in bed. Ruki tried to stay with him as much as possible, try to relax him or just be there as comfort. He'd expected this, honestly. Reita was waiting for them to give Uruha up. Regaining strength and energy as he waited wasn't a bad thing.

    After it went to the next stage of the cycle Ruki knew so well - pretending to be okay. Reita would smile and talk, joke with Aoi, engage fully with his life. But behind closed doors he was listless, barely reacting or speaking, seeming hardly even awake. When Reita thought he was alone, Ruki would catch him with his head down and hands folded together in some sort of prayer. Sometimes, he would even see glistening drops sliding from his eyes to soak into the material masking his face. Ruki's comforts - stroking his hair, massaging the tense body, murmuring quietly to help him sleep, or even just being there touching him - seemed to help, and he thought he could feel the angel relax at it. Sometimes Reita would excuse Ruki to "sleep in his own bed", which the demon obeyed and tried to not feel guilty for doing. He'd use the time to give Reita his own space for breathing and thought, and to soothe his master, who was becoming edgier and clearly more jealous as the time passed.

    Ruki knew what was coming next as part of the cycle, and he braced himself for it. Aoi seemed to know too, and despite his own nerves, lavished Ruki with gentle touches and affection, as if to maybe make up for whatever pain might come. But, as he had said already, Ruki wouldn't blame Reita for it. He knew his friend was about to explode from tension and fear and grief, and an outlet was necessary. If Ruki was the only one, he would bear it without any ill feelings. He’d certainly had much worse than Reita had ever given him. He was capable of handling whatever he was dealt.

    So when Reita approached soon after beginning to show stress again, Ruki had his answer in hand, so he could answer quickly and not make Reita feel too guilty.

    "I need you and Aoi -"

    "Yes," Ruki said, and there was a moment of silence before he realised Reita hadn't asked anything. "Wait. I'm sorry."

    "It's fine." A tired smile from the blonde. "I know what you were expecting."

    "You don't need to feel bad about it."

    "I know. But I'm asking something different this time. I need Aoi too."

    Ruki glanced at his master, who also looked a bit stunned that Reita hadn't asked for sex. The darker angel said after a second, "Sure, Rei. What's up?"

    "I want to go do a threesome at the abbey."

    Ruki stared. He was sure Aoi was staring, all the more surprised, as well. Reita simply watched them, looking wary, like he expected them to say no and put up a fight. He didn't offer any reason. When Ruki got a grip on his thoughts, he tried, "I'm fine with that, but I'm a bit..."

    "Shocked?" Reita asked quietly, his eyes flickering.

    "That works."

    Aoi sat up straight now, and Ruki fought a natural pull to go to his side.

    "Nothing yet," the blonde said, gaze turning away. "I worry. Maybe just what happened at the cathedral isn't enough. Maybe they need more."

    "What if they've let him go and he's just forbidden from ever leaving? Is on house arrest?" Aoi suggested.

    "I need to be sure." There was a quiet desperation in his voice, in his face. "I need to do everything I can to be sure that they're not holding him because they think I'm just pretending."

    Ruki bit his lip, not knowing exactly how to speak what was in his mind. Aoi said it for him.

    "Would Uruha even still want you? One person, Ruki, maybe he could forgive. Maybe he could even forgive both me and Ruki. But how far are you going push it? At some point, no matter how much he loves you, he might not be able to let it go."

    "I know." Reita's head was bowed now, gold locks curtaining their view of his face. "I know. Not... not much more than this. I just can't sit around knowing that I might have been able to do more..."

    "If you want to storm up there and get him, our Lord might support you."

    "They'll kill him for sure if they know I'm coming. You know that as well as I do."

    Aoi glanced to Ruki. The demon looked back, still chewing on his lip, giving Aoi as plaintive a look as he could. He couldn’t see Reita like this. The darker angel sighed and ran a hand back through his own hair before speaking.

    "So who's doing who?"

    Reita's head turned back to them, searching their faces for a moment before a weak smile crossed his mouth. "Any way you want it, Aoi."

    "Hmm. Okay.  Let's see what we can come up with then." Aoi's roguish grin was back. Ruki let out a silent sigh of relief and added his smile as well.

    "Anything you two want with me, I'll do."

    "Thank you," Reita whispered.

    "Don't. It's what we're here for." Aoi patted Ruki's thigh. "Go get dressed up, bitch."

    "Just for you two boys," Ruki purred, standing and walking to Reita, running a hand along his torso. "I want everything you've got."

    "You'll get it."

    "If you dress sexy enough," Aoi added as he stood. Ruki felt a swift slap on his ass, and he yelped a bit before purring again.

    "You got it. I won't be too long. Promise."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween!


	9. Chapter 9

    "Get up."

    Uruha didn't respond. He'd learned not to. It was better to lie and let them do whatever they wanted, save his strength for something else. If he had any strength left, anyway. Somehow, even though he had none to begin with, by the time every torture or questioning or whatever may be was over, he was more drained than he had been in the beginning. He was almost entirely numb. The only thing he had that he clung to were memories of Reita, of his voice and smiles and touch... the joy of hearing that Reita loved him. It was what was carrying him through.

    "Get up."

    Uruha ignored the voice, kept his eyes closed and willed the guard to do whatever they wanted and quickly.

    "You can hear me. Get up, whore."

    Still he didn't move, just lay where they had previously left him. He heard an aggravated sigh, muttering, and then the clink of keys and the screech of a lock being turned, followed by the grinding of the door being opened. Footsteps echoed towards him. He didn't move or flinch. Not even the hand grabbing his hair and yanking on it was a surprise anymore.

    "The highers want to see you."

    Uruha felt surprise and panic run through him at that, jolting his system back into pain and ache. What did they want with him? Was his torture over? Were they going to kill him? Or let him go? He didn't know how to feel now.

    "Walk."

    Uruha opened his eyes and tried to walk on his own. But he was too weak from everything that had been dealt to him, from starvation and thirst, and he collapsed back to the floor. The guard grabbed him by his arm and hauled him up, somewhat supporting but mostly dragging him out of the dungeon, up the stairs and into the light of heaven. Uruha winced heavily, eyes burning at contact with the brightness. He kept them tightly shut as he was pulled down corridors and around corners. When the journey stopped, he opened one watering eye to see the doors of the court. He felt his heartbeat in his throat. This would be the end, one way or another.

    The doors opened, and the guard started pulling him in. Uruha did his best to walk, to carry himself and try to show some dignity. They hadn't broken his will. Despite everything he had suffered, he hadn't wavered from his want to be with Reita. He wanted to show them he was still in contempt of them.

    But again, his strength failed him, and the guard all but threw him. He felt himself hit the ground and slide across the smooth, cold stone until he stopped, a heap in front of the highest judges. He didn't try to sit up right away and instead spent a few moments breathing before moving. He managed to push himself up onto one elbow, but when he sat up further his hips screamed in resistance, so he gave up and leaned on his arms instead.

    "Uruha."

    Still squinting against the light, Uruha craned his neck to try to look up at his judges and gave up when his eyes started burning again. Lowering his head, he decided to not respond.

    "Repent."

    Uruha remained silent, stared stonily ahead with half-opened eyes. Even if he didn't want to be with Reita, how could he go back after all he had been through?

    "Repent Uruha, and return to your glory. You are beloved. You will be forgiven if you renounce your sins."

    He wanted to scream, but once more swallowed it back.

    "He does not love you. You went through all that pain and torture for nothing."

    Uruha felt his heart ache a bit, but he knew it wasn't true. Reita loved him. He knew it.

    "He has been seen many times now, fornicating with demons in holy places. He had an unholy orgy in the abbey that you two so loved."

    Ruki? He knew he shouldn't cry. He wasn't there. Maybe Reita had assumed him dead.

    "He does not love you, Uruha. He has said it himself when confronted, while he sodomized a demon in a holy cathedral. He has told your brethren to pass on to you that he does not love you, and that he toyed with you. He only wanted to take your virginity to spite Our Father."

    He shouldn't cry. But the tears were coming and he didn't know if he could hold them back. He knew the judges were watching for his reaction. He was more than certain they weren't telling the truth. They had to be lying to try to get him to change his mind. But even though that had to be what it was, and there was no need to cry, tears were still welling up, making his throat close off.

    "Uruha, renounce him and return to us."

    "No," Uruha whispered.

    "Will the witness give an account of what he saw?"

    "Your Honour," said a new voice. "Reita, the fallen angel Aoi, and a succubus demon fornicated in the ruins of that holy abbey. Reita sodomized the demon and Aoi, and was sodomized by Aoi as well. There was no show of regret or any thought of Uruha present. The angels revelled in their filthy ways. For hours upon hours, they continued their disgusting carnal acts."

    Uruha tried so hard, but not enough. A tear slid down his face as the words echoed in his head. Without a single thought of him, Reita had had sex in their old place, in the place where they had made love together. Where Uruha had lost his virginity. And he was having sex with a demon, with Aoi... in the place that had been theirs alone...!

    "Repent, Uruha. You understand that he does not love you. He is not waiting for you."

    "No..." He managed to stop the flood, but only for a few moments before it broke through the restraints he'd put on his own emotions to survive the torture. After all he had been through, they were weakened, and broke at hearing of Reita's actions. The tears that fell wouldn't stop now. "No, I won't... I love him, I love him..."

    "Do not profane that word! He cares nothing for you. You are but a plaything to him."

    "I don't care, I love him... even if he doesn't want me, I want him!" Too weak now too keep himself up, Uruha let himself down to the ground and continued sobbing brokenly. "I love him, I love him... Reita...!"

    "Repent, Uruha."

    "I love him..."

    "Come back into the arms of the Lord."

    "No, I love him... Reita...!"

    He felt absolutely pathetic. He _was_ absolutely pathetic, he knew. But he couldn't let go of it. There was no retracting his feelings. Nothing could be done about that, and he would not take them back after everything he had suffered for them. There was no way to ever forget or move on from his emotions.

    "Reita..."

    "Uruha, this is your last chance. Renounce him. Renounce this unholy lust for him, the false feelings that are eating away your heart and mind. Return to good and holy, and live a life free of him and his manipulation."

    "No!" Uruha screamed now. "Damn you! I’ll never do it! Not after you've raped and beaten and starved me! There is no good here! I'd rather die than stay here! Kill me! Kill me instead!"

    No response, and he lay his head down and cried into the stone. All the pain and ache and sorrow was filling him now, he could no longer numb himself to them. The tears and breaks lining his wings hurt more than his body did. They felt like they were half-ripped from his back. Even that pain was nothing compared to how he felt on the inside, how his broken heart was bleeding. It was hell. He wanted to die. The only thing he wanted more than death was to see Reita one last time and tell him he forgave him.

    "Reita..." he whimpered, so quietly even he barely heard it.

    "Uruha, you have sinned. You have lusted and fornicated, and shown no remorse. You have insulted Our Great Father and refused his kindness. Your lack of consideration for yourself and your brethren is dangerous. We must pass judgement on you, and we find you guilty. Punishment for all charges must be carried out. You will receive thirty lashings upon your back and ten upon each of your wings for heresy, for tainting Heaven with your unholy presence, and for disobeying Our Lord. For the gravest sin of Lust, you will be branded with its sigil to signify your state as fallen, and your wings will be cut and then bound. Once these things are finished, you will be cast out and left for whatever fate may occur to you upon the Earth. No one will come to save or heal you. This is your punishment for defying all that is good and holy."

    "Damn you," Uruha spat bitterly, though he was sure it sounded more like a whimper. Reita... would Reita be there for him, or come to him...?

    "He will not be there," was a cool response, as if they could read his mind. "He will be too busy in an orgy of sin to pay any mind to you. Whatever may happen to you upon the Earth, you will be alone for it. Take him away and begin his punishment."

    Just like the last time he was in this court, hands grabbed his arms and dragged him away. He didn't bother fighting. There was no point. He let them take him back down to the cells, into another room that was darker and smelled of blood. He didn't fight as they chained him, arms above his head and face to the wall. He didn't whimper when they stretched his wings out as far as they could go, despite how sickeningly painful it was. He only thought of Reita, the man he loved, the man that completed him. That hurt too, but it was far better than anything else.

    There was no way to ignore the lashings. He tried. He bit his tongue hard as the first couple fell, stinging and ripping his already-abused flesh. He could taste blood in his mouth. But on the fifth lash, a choked sob wrested its way from him. The feel of warm blood trickling down his back contrasted with the icy burn of the whip trails. Uruha still tried to keep himself quiet, though he continued sobbing as the lashes continued to fall. Somehow he remained conscious through all thirty on his back, and distantly thought he was sure there was no skin left.

    "Leave him," he heard a low voice say. "He can soak in his own filthy blood for the night."

    Uruha didn't stay conscious much longer than it took for them to leave him, still in chains, blood draining from his hands and down his back. When he woke, he was shivering with cold. He was numb on the outside, no longer feeling the shackles biting into his skin, but he could still very much feel the muscles inside, their stiffness and screaming soreness too present for him to even think of ignoring.

    The silence was heavy, pressing down on him and making it hard to breathe, causing everything to hurt all the more. His wings were also numb, but he could still feel their weight and how much his body wanted them lowered. In the oppressive quiet, his mind turned to anything to distract itself... and of course, Reita was all he could think of. The tears came back, fresh and replenished, difficult to try to hold back.

    "It's not his fault... it's not his fault... and they're lying, they have to be," he whispered, cringing as his voice echoed ever so slightly back at him. "Reita wouldn't do that to me... he loves me... he loves me, I know he does...!"

    But the tears pushed their way through anyway, burning courses down his cheeks. Some went down his neck, stinging wounds, others dripped from his chin to the floor, disappearing from sight. He wanted them to stop, but his body wouldn't listen. He supposed it was letting out everything he had been keeping back. But to cry over this...

    Was it that he doubted Reita? He prayed that it wasn't the case that was what he believed, even subconsciously.

    "Reita... I love you... I want to see you..."

    The wave had passed before anyone came in. When they did enter, he had been hanging, listless and blank, for probably hours. The tears had dried into a stiffened mask on his face. Again, he felt nothing emotionally or externally; the only thing that occupied him was the miserable burning of what was physically beneath the skin. Even that was beginning to fade.

    "Are you ready to continue taking your punishment?"

    Uruha didn't say anything, just stared off and willed it to be over quickly.

    "Even if you're not, you're going to take it."

    The punishment on his wings was worse than that on his back had been. It was nothing but pure agony, so great that the first lick jerked him, his mind and his body, straight back to reality. He could feel the shattered bones beaten and cracked more, the feathers torn and ripped from the weak, frozen flesh as it was flayed open. Before even all ten on the first wing were done, he had lost his stomach, heaving onto the floor in a miserable burning nausea of pain.

    He didn't remember the beats on his other wing. But he did faintly remember being let down to the ground and beaten and violated over and over again. He, as he had come to do naturally, simply lay still and let them do what they wanted with him, staring through the floor or the ceiling or whatever was in front of his eyes, mind in a faraway different world, where everything was just as he wanted it, until he faded to black.

    Woken by cold thrown in his face, Uruha was jerked from those warm fantasies back to consciousness with a gasp and a dry heave, the burning on his raw back and wings churning his stomach. He was laid on his back in a new room so bright that, like when he had been dragged back to the court, he couldn't see. Rough voices growled at him to wake up. He shut his eyes tightly instead, but that resulted in a very loud and very painful bone snapping in his wing. Not wanting to endure that pain anymore, blinking hard to try to clear his head, he made himself stay awake. He would take it. He'd bear all of it.

    "You're to watch yourself branded, filthy one."

    It took a few moments to register with him. The brand of sin. Of course he would have to have it. Uruha had readied himself for this. But when he saw, through tears, the cloaked angel lower an orange-hot blade to his bared leg, he still panicked.

    "No... no...!"

    "Such pretty legs, that you spread wide to let hell inside you in carnal sin."

    "No! Please, no!"

    He tried to kick, but the angel merely motioned, and others came and grabbed his legs, pinning them to the stone he was laid upon. Uruha fought with all he had, but between all the others, he barely even budged. He screamed hoarsely, still trying to break his way out, as the blade touched his skin. The burn was what he expected, but layered on top of everything else his body had borne, it was too much to take. His head hit the stone, and he was hyperventilating, shaking hard, body past its limits.

    "No no, you have to watch." An angel grabbed his hair and pulled his head up, forcing his face towards where the knife was making its path, flowing so elegantly one might not believe it was dealing such pain. He felt lightheaded and distant, but somehow still his eyes fastened on the process.

    "Watch as you really begin to turn black. At the very least, this isn't from rotting."

    Uruha didn't have the strength to use his voice anymore. He grit his teeth, and his throat would work on instinct, but no sound came out. There was only pained breath as he watched the burning knife score the breadth of his thigh in its sadistic dance. The moment the blade lifted, his head was dropped to crack painfully against the stone. His vision plunged to black, but he was, unfortunately, still very much awake. He felt them shift him, roll him onto his stomach, and now the seared scar on his thigh was pressed into the cool of the stone. He soaked up this one bit of good feeling, clung to it desperately, as another blade ripped through the base of one of his wings, slashing the flesh almost all the way up through to the bone. Now Uruha couldn't even go through the motions of screaming or even whimpering with the torture. His body refused. He lay motionless, too conscious to ignore the agony, too weak to do anything to try to put it out of mind. The tears ran free, slipping over his nose and pooling on the white stone.

    He just wanted to die, and have this be over with.

    They only cut the base of one wing - the other was slashed haphazardly, but not almost severed. He stared off, eyes not registering anything and senses only distantly feeling how roughly and tightly they tied his wings, pressing and forcing them against their flexibility and crushing the structure. It wasn't only his wings - something inside him felt broken beyond repair. He hadn't felt this when he had been tortured and violated, hadn't felt it during his lashes. But now, suddenly, carved with proof of sins and wings mutilated, he felt empty, hollow, shattered. Like everything had been taken from him.

    "Well, beloved," an angel's voice said in a sneering tone. "You will always be damned now. A broken, filthy thing that was once beautiful and whole."

    A chuckle, dark and taunting, from another voice, which added, "For nothing. So, are you ready to fall?"

    As in the dungeon before, Uruha didn't bother responding. There was no point. He didn't have the strength for it. It wouldn't accomplish anything, anyway. They must have become tired of trying to provoke him as well, because they said nothing more. They carried him out, seeming to know that he wasn't capable of even crawling, carried him for a long time, the strain of his arms stretched out knotting his shoulders and upper back like the too-tight ropes that tethered his wings. His vision was starting to return, showing him vague blurs of colours, mostly the burning white he could no longer stand, some movements, some things that were he in a better state of mind might have meant a lot to him. It meant nothing to him now.

    "Goodbye forever, Uruha. Die quietly so as not to bring any more shame to the name of Our Lord."

    His captors released him, and his body plunged. He felt himself tumbling through the air that was freezing around him. Adrenaline of panic shot through him. His stomach was far behind him, and filling its place was the terror and sickly emptiness of a freefall with no promise of soft landing. After a few quick glances as he spun out of control, he put together that he was falling towards land. He didn't want to hit the ground... he didn't want to die that way! Uruha scrabbled weakly with the ties, fighting with what little he had left to work the knots free so that, even though they were cut and broken and quite useless, he could try to use his wings to slow his descent.

 _I'm going to die,_ he realised, and for the first time true despair had its hold on him. _I'm going to hit the ground and break into pieces. I'm going to die, unsightly and ugly. And I didn't even get to see him again...!_

    A knot loosened, then another. His fingertips were raw. Uruha hooked his fingers into the rough rope and pulled, straining his body the opposite way. It only hurt as he pulled his bones and tender flesh against the cutting ties. Suddenly the knots gave way, and the end of the wing flared out into the tearing cold. The chill that ripped through it hurt, trying to flex it or force the rest of it out of its bindings hurt. The extra bit of added surface did nothing to slow his fall - it simply added to places the wind could push at to tumble him at more perilous angles. Uruha internally cursed and sobbed, spent of the last rush he had been given. He would hit soon. He decided to say one last prayer, to the man he had so loved.

    "I'm sorry," he whispered silently as the wind screamed in his ears. "I'm sorry I wasn't enough..."

    He was frozen, too cold to survive. Uruha desperately tried to make his peace as he saw himself nearing the terminal of his journey. Uruha squeezed his eyes shut and said the name one last time.

    "Reita...!"

    He hit something. His eyes flew open, shocked and disoriented. He knew he hadn't been that close! But it wasn't earth beneath him, and he was still plummeting. Something was holding him, stopping his body from being tossed in the wind. Before he could try to twist himself to look around, a voice said, muffled by the roar of the fall, "You fell into my arms, as promised."

    That voice. Uruha would have broken down if he could. The strong arms embraced him, pulled him into position so an arm held him around each his shoulders and under his thighs, and then another impact jolted him. He was staring into black. Not black like darkness, or unconsciousness. A soft, warm black that his face was pressed against. A safe black. A black that smelled like his lover.

    "I'm here. I'm here." The dark angel was rocking him, almost like a baby. "I have you. I'm here."

    Uruha felt his throat swell up. He was at the end, but he was in Reita's arms.

    "I'm so sorry, Uruha... I'm so sorry..."

    Reita moved, and now Uruha was looking up into amber eyes. He had no more tears to shed, they were all used. He could only stare until his vision would give out on him again.

    "I have you now,” Reita told him. “I'm never letting you go. I promise."

    And there was a kiss. Uruha let himself, starved soul and battered body, give up and melt in Reita's arms. He didn't close his eyes. He wanted to take in everything he could. When Reita pulled back, he brushed Uruha's face gently.

    "You're safe now. It's over, Uruha. You're safe, you're with me." Lips pressed into his forehead. "Let's get you home."

    Home. Uruha hadn't been 'home' in a long time. Not since Reita had been gone from him. But now they were together again, and he knew. He knew that he'd finally be where he belonged. He smiled despite himself, despite how he should have no strength for that action. He saw faintly Reita's lips curve too.

    "Let's go home, Uruha," the blonde angel repeated.

    Uruha swallowed hard and nodded once before laying his head back against Reita's chest. As he felt the other angel move, he whispered, though he knew it was silent and wouldn't be heard, "Take me home, Reita. Far from heaven."


End file.
